


Wear Me Down To Bones

by Siiiiiix



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Aftercare, Along with a side of small bossy goth dom gf, Also Hubert smokes, Begging, Creampie, Dirty Talk, Exhibitionism, F/M, Femdom, Fluff and Smut, Food Kink, Foreplay, Grinding, Hand & Finger Kink, Height Differences, Hope you like smut because this is. Hoo Boy, Humiliation, Kissing, Mutual Masturbation, Orgasm Control, Porn with Feelings, Praise Kink, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Size Difference, Size Kink, Small Dom/Big Sub, Teasing, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, We Don't Talk About Chapter 5, Who ever ordered tall spooky goth sub bfs your food is ready, big sub/small dom, sexual magic, smut with just a hint of plot in the background, thigh-highs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:28:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26634373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siiiiiix/pseuds/Siiiiiix
Summary: “Is this where I meet my end, then? Lady Edelgard would be so disappointed in you if that were the case.” He tries to hold his voice steady but something is creeping in around the edges. It shouldn’t, couldn’t be excitement, yet Hubert struggles to figure out what else, exactly, the tightness in his chest might be.“Your ‘end’? Wow, the others weren’t joking about you at all. How melodramatic. If by ‘your end’ you mean the end of your asinine questions, then yes, I would certainly hope so. As disappointed as you believe she would be... I’m sure the Imperial princess could find it in her heart to excuse me just this once.”
Relationships: Lysithea von Ordelia/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	1. Deliberation

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure: This is based off of a RP adaptation with an anonymous writing partner. Also, I am very sad that these two don't receive any supports in the game. Two tragic dark mages supporting their little Emperor -- what's better than that?
> 
> Note: For The Smut, go straight to Chapter 2 and beyond. If you're a weirdo like me who enjoys a little setup and context prior to, then this is the chapter for you to start with!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lysithea is the Black Eagle House's newest recruit. She has some grievances about Hubert's decisions on behalf of their House leader.

Just as the sun passes off its baton to the moon, so too do the students of the Black Eagle house transition from uncertainty to glory. Neither the Lions nor the Deer held back today; Lysithea was especially hesitant to trade blows with her former classmates of the Leicester Alliance, but after some ‘friendly’ banter from Claude and Hilda (as well as an overwhelming desire to impress Edelgard and Dorothea), the young magewright pulled through and assisted her team through to victory. In the same vein, many of Hubert’s own predictions for the inter-house battle had come to pass, and his preparations had reaped a bountiful reward. Claude’s gambit had nearly succeeded in forcing the Eagle and Lion into wearing each other out, but diverting their cavalry to rout the Deer’s archers kept them from preying on their weakened peers. What he hadn’t counted on was the battle being so close. Too close.

The future Edelgard dreamt of must come to pass, and it was his duty to ensure nothing stopped it from doing so; even something as seemingly trivial as a mock battle. Edelgard’s right to rule must be absolute, untarnished by failings, unquestionable as she forged the future of Fódlan. He knew by now it was impossible to convince her to abandon the frontlines; that same determination that made her worth serving could be so, so frustrating when she put her own safety at risk.

Instead, he would do what he always did. Slink away into the shadows, utilize whatever new power he could invent, scrounge, or steal, and remove obstacles from Edelgard’s path before she even need realize them. Today’s battle had served to throw into sharp contrast the gulf between his skills as they were and where they needed to be. Even the newest recruit, Lysithea, outpaced him- there was something off about her, certainly, but it was no excuse. If he were to remain of use to Edelgard, he must hone his skills further.

Now was no time to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

On the other side of the Officers Academy, smiling faces, bountiful meals, and quick paced music flood the dining-hall-turned-ballroom, but Lysithea’s never been much for recreation. Life is short, and fate is a cruel mistress. Time wasted on parties and dancing when she could instead be studying and honing her spellcasting is tantamount to a crime in her rosy-pink eyes. She reminds herself of the fact as she traverses the academy’s courtyard, kicking up shallow clouds of dust with her short steps and brisk pace.

Even if, in another reality, the girl had been partial to mirth and play, her course for the evening would remain unchanged. As the rest of her colleagues paraded their well-earned accolades (class leader included, despite needing her arm in a sling for a couple of weeks), she’d seen the right-hand man of the Imperial princess not congratulating her... but chastising her.

Just the thought of it has Lysithea fuming. Sure, Hubert acknowledged Edelgard’s accomplishments, even complimented several of her quick-witted tactics and game-breaking decisions. But he dared suggest that Edelgard overexerted herself, that she not even partake in the House’s celebration! All to get a few extra hours of bedrest for a sprained shoulder. Unbelievable!

The future Emperor may have had the tact to brush that off, but Lysithea von Ordelia could not say the same for herself. She has some choice words for the brooding dark mage. If her sources are correct, he should be alone behind the training ground’s large wooden doors. If he is not... well, the former Leicester representative had her bookbag, spell tomes, notes, and pens. At least she’d get a few hours of practice all to herself in the normally crowded training area.

Upon peeking inside, Lysithea doesn’t initially see anyone. However, there are a number of columns and walls — Hubert could very well be just around the corner. She drops the leather rucksack to the ground and summons a ball of light beside her to illuminate the area. “You have a lot of nerve, Hubert, trying to keep Edelgard from enjoying herself today. What exactly is your problem?”

Lysithea steps further into the arena, looking for any signs of life. Her eyes narrow a fraction, lips drawn into a pout. “Hmph. If you’re even still here. I would hope that you realized the error of your ways and slithered back to your room, but you don’t strike me as the type to admit wrongdoing.”

Now, Hubert had, indeed, withdrawn to the training grounds, grimoire in his hand and a deep furrow on his brow. He felt he was nearly on the cusp of... something, some kind of revelation not yet within his grasp. He cast a simple alarm spell across the heavy oaken doors as he shut them behind himself, ensuring his privacy as he fires bolt after bolt of shadowy energy into the training dummies, scratching down and scribbling out arcane formulae as he prods at the edges of his thesis.

With everyone else either in the infirmary recovering or celebrating in the mess hall, Hubert was nearly unprepared when the silent mental alarm goes off. He grabs his tome and slinks back into the deep shade, taking care to step softly as he slips between pillars, making his way toward the door.

Whatever doubts he may have had about his visitor are dispelled instantly as Lysithea makes herself known, chiding the still darkness of the training room. Hubert finishes his slow loop around the exterior of the room, making his way to the doors as Lysithea steps further in. Oh, he loved this part, the way his target jumps in surprise as he emerges from behind them.

He slams the doors shut harder than entirely necessary with a conjured force as he steps out of the shadows, harsh features illuminated in stark contrast by the moon overhead. 

“Gha—!” The harsh slam of oak meeting metal freezes the girl’s blood solid. Lysithea slaps a hand over her mouth, panicked irises akin to two tiny rose petals floating in oversized white tea cups. Somehow, she’s able to suppress her impulse to half a step back, the simple action requiring far more willpower than she’d care to admit to keep from jumping.

“To admit wrongdoing would require me to be wrong. I simply offered Lady Edelgard my advice, as I am wont to do as her retainer. She is wise enough to make her own decisions, and I will ensure they become the correct decisions.” His voice is even and low as he addresses her, his gloved hands clasped behind his back.

If asked, Lysithea would blame the weather for her reaction. It’s the end of Wyvern Moon, after all — it’s cooler outside now. Almost cold, actually. At the cusp of winter. A terrified, full-body shiver is perfectly reasonable. Though... Lysithea folds her arms tightly across her chest, just to illustrate how definitely cold and certainly not spooked she is in this moment. The shallow, rapid pounding of her heart finally slows to a normal beat, but her eyebrows remain furrowed. Agitated. Lysithea steps forward as if to assert herself, intruding upon the warlock’s personal bubble. “You’re lucky I didn’t hit you with Hades Omega, sneaking up on me like that! Try that again and you’ll have a real reason to hide your eye behind your stupid hair.”

There were few pleasures Hubert allowed himself. His vices were mostly limited to strong, black coffee and cigarettes rolled with Brigid tobacco, enjoyed in some isolated corner of the Monastery, away from prying eyes. Mostly. If everyone would consider him some grim specter anyway, he may as well indulge in it, and he frequently chose to play up the persona projected onto him for a rise.

He luxuriated in watching Lysithea recompose herself after her childish yelp, the way she struggled so hard to do nothing at all, shivering and crossing her arms. Ah yes, she was afraid of ghosts, wasn’t she? He almost envied that fear, having long ago found that the villains lurking in darkness are dreadfully corporeal, though with the good grace to have flesh that could be rent from bone.

“...Ugh. You sound ridiculous. She can make her own decisions, so long as you think they’re the correct decisions?” Lysithea vaguely gestures to her classmate’s uniform. “That’s like saying you’ll wear any color. So long as that color is black.”

Hubert’s verdant eyes appraise her cooly as she approaches, one side of his lip hitching up over teeth, a doglike sneer the closest the young man seemed capable of getting to a bemused smile. “I fear you misunderstand me. Lady Edelgard is free to chose as she pleases, and I will act in the shadows to make sure that her choice is a favorable one.”

The scion of Ordelia flicks her head aside, cascading long locks of white over her shoulder — not unlike how she’d seen Edelgard herself do just before the mock battle. Perhaps it was silly of this new recruit to so closely align herself with Her Highness after joining their House, acting like a clingy younger sister in the eyes of some.

But she and Edelgard shared a dark, profound, and tragic connection that few, if any, in the Officer’s Academy could ever be allowed to discover, let alone understand. Lysithea is defensive due to this, and digs her heel in further. “How is that any different from what I just said? At all? Still sounds like you’re manipulating her decisions based on your own wildly subjective judgments. It takes a special type of insufferable to—...”

He brings one hand up under his chin, tilting his head slightly to appraise her. He hadn’t given Lysithea much thought before the mock battle, as she’d only recently joined the Black Eagles and there were many pressing matters in Enbarr that pulled his attention thin. “Your fervent defense of the princess is noted, however. Though I can’t help but wonder why exactly you feel so strongly...”

His fellow dark mage had grown close to the princess quite rapidly, almost alarmingly so. The other Eagles had even taken to joking that they were siblings, and there was a resemblance that seemed to reinforce this. The same white hair, the same nearly-red eyes... it’s when she flips her hair over one shoulder, just as he’d watched Edelgard do countless times before, that the pin finally drops.

“Ah. Actually, I believe I may have my answer.” It’s almost embarrassing it took this long for him to make the connection, as one of the precious few people that knew the secret behind Edelgard’s unnatural appearance. “And it seems we may have a common enemy.”

Lysithea lifts a hand out before her, as if to race the cold beads of sweat threatening to fall from her temple. He did not just say what she thinks he did. Did he? “Quiet. I believe you should stop right there. Your answer is that Edelgard and I are... friends. Good friends. You would know nothing about that, keeping your distance from people like a phantom.”

“Yes, yes, those with similar pasts often grow to become friends, as I understand it.” She was hardly the first to insinuate he lacked any friends, and she wasn’t even particularly wrong. But Hubert had long ago accepted, even embraced, the fact that he was to walk his path alone, parallel to Edelgard’s. Such was his duty, and extraneous bonds would only distract him. Amused, Hubert exhales a short, sharp breath through his nose. It seemed he’d struck a nerve, Lysithea’s defensiveness more than enough evidence to support his assumptions. He folds his hands behind his back once more, smiling that grim smile down at her. She’s smaller than he’d realized, and he can respect the authority she managed to exude despite her age and stature.

Thrown into the spotlight, Lysithea's speech can’t match the rapid thoughts firing off inside her head, and the young mage is desperate to switch subjects. Hubert needs to be uncomfortable. He needs to stand at the center of attention he so frequently flees. Lysithea wracks her brain for something, anything to sink her teeth into.

What she eventually finds is nothing short of taboo, but she sees no other choice. Her pout morphs into a pale pink smirk. Lysithea allows her arms to fall to the side, indigo wisps of dark magic emanating from her palms to her fingertips. Sensing the shift of mana in the air, Hubert begins to weave a counterspell behind his back. He assumed Lysithea wouldn’t actually attempt to kill him, but she had an impressive command of magic if her performance in the mock battle was any indication, and it seemed prudent to have a contingency plan.

“Wait. Now I see. You try to intimidate everyone because you have no clue how to function otherwise. Even when you’re so tall that you probably hit your head on doors... and even with a dark, dramatic voice—“ Why he didn’t pursue life as a thespian is beyond her, quite frankly. Lysithea squints, resuming her analysis of the warlock. “...big, strong hands... cheek bones that could sharpen every single one of the academy’s blades... None of those qualities matter in the slightest, as far as you’re concerned.”

She prods Hubert’s chest with her index, staring up at him through snowy bangs. “Because underneath all of that, you’re just a lost, little puppy dog. I bet you’ve never even been ki— no, no, I bet you’ve never even held someone’s hand. Am I right? Don’t answer that. I already know.“

He holds his ground as Lysithea pokes at his chest, one eyebrow arching in curiosity. Her tone was clearly aggravated, but her comments seemed dangerously close to compliments; and Hubert at least knew her well enough to know she was too smart to attempt to flatter him. It’s the mention of intimacy that throws him off- she’s right, of course, that much was hardly a secret- but he finds an unbidden flush rushes to his cheeks despite himself. “I fail to see how that is even remotely relevant-“

Marching forward, Lysithea in no uncertain terms traces the subtle outline of Hubert’s length. She applies just enough pressure to slip the chilling, static energy of her spell through the fabric of his slacks.

“Consider yourself lucky, Hubert. I’m not scared of you.”

It’s not until she presses a hand to the fabric of his trousers that Hubert takes a step back, then another, and another, as Lysithea closes the gap. A disconcertingly pleasurable chill runs up his spine as Lysithea channels her magic through the fabric of his clothes; breaking his concentration on the spell behind his back and pressing him against a great stone pillar.

And then she’s cornering him into the very same column he used to frighten her. What a fascinating turn of events. “Heh. As a matter of fact, I’ve decided it’s your turn to be scared. Take a seat so that I can take mine.”

Lysithea channels a new wave of mana through her hands, targeting Hubert with a gravity spell intended to pull him to the ground.

He barely has enough time to be embarrassed, furious at himself for being disarmed by something so banal, before her spell triggers and he’s pulled to the ground, collapsing under his own weight. His own considerable magical resistance is immediately overwhelmed by the sheer volume of her mana, and it occurs to him that the Agarthans may be capable of altering more than the physical body.

He looks up at her, slumped somewhat awkwardly against the pillar, his infinitely heavy wrists pinned to the ground beneath him and his long, lanky legs extended across the floor. “Is this where I meet my end, then? Lady Edelgard would be so disappointed in you if that were the case.” He tries to hold his voice steady but something is creeping in around the edges. It shouldn’t, couldn’t be excitement, yet Hubert struggles to figure out what else, exactly, the tightness in his chest might be.

“Your ‘end’? Wow, the others weren’t joking about you at all. How melodramatic. If by ‘your end’ you mean the end of your asinine questions, then yes, I would certainly hope so. As disappointed as you believe she would be... I’m sure the Imperial princess could find it in her heart to excuse me just this once.”

The unsettled, full-body chill ascending Hubert’s frame does not go unnoticed. His graceless drop to the floor immediately following manages to pull a giggle from her lips, but no sooner does it happen does Lysithea obscure her face in a feeble attempt to hide it. “Heh. After all, they say it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. Isn’t that right?”

Lysithea follows through on her resolve now that Hubert is properly seated. With his legs splayed dumbly along the ground, the dark mage plants herself on his lap. Familiarizing herself with the elder student’s body would be her homework for the night, she decides. “You’re definitely not the type to clear your silly, far-reaching schemes with all the relevant parties first. But that doesn’t stop you, does it?”

Lysithea pointedly drags herself forward across intimate anatomy before reaching for Hubert’s hands. Although they were still under the effects of her gravity enchantment, she could at least move them around to her liking. Not unlike posing a stubborn mannequin.

Hubert’s face had already been burning, he assumes, as hot as it possibly could in embarrassment at falling for what, he assumes, was a simple ruse to break his concentration. But there’s an old saying about assumptions, and it seems he’s made an ass of himself several times over as Lysithea alights in his lap. If all Lysithea had come here to do was chide and humiliate him, she’d already accomplished more than enough. What he can’t quite grasp immediately is why she is continuing.

Hubert had never allowed himself the space for desire, leveraging the considerable mental control required of dark magi to tamp his feelings down. He’d simply had too much to do and already precious little time to do it, and lust was a distraction he could ill afford. Consequently he’d never considered he could even be appealing in that way, or that Lysithea’s compliments might’ve been even partially genuine.

She laces her own fingers through them for a brief moment, just to admire the stark contrast between the two. “In that respect, you and I aren’t so different then. I’d almost go as far to say... compatible. Almost. Here, hold me for a little while.”

Whether he likes it or not, she positions Hubert's fingers just-so against the curve of her back. Once she’s satisfied with their new location, the girl lifts her palms up to his chest and nonchalantly slips the buttons of his uniform coat out of place. How many people can say they’ve seen underneath? Curiosity was truly getting the better of her. “I can’t say for certain until I learn what makes you tick.”

His face is flushed a deep red and he sets his jaw, trying to focus on anything, anything at all, besides the warmth of her body against his.

“And how exactly do you intend to figure that out, I wonder?” Hubert can’t recompose himself enough to speak until she’s already toying with his buttons, and even then there’s a soft waver to his voice that he despises. There were many arenas in which his confidence was unshakeable, and this was absolutely not one of them. It doesn’t even occur to him how absolutely disastrous it would be to be discovered now, struggling to simply keep any of his dignity intact.

And yet, the tremble of Hubert’s voice does something to Lysithea. That sound sinks hard and fast into the pit of her stomach, and suddenly, she feels the need to draw in her thighs and smooth down her skirt. Her cheeks burn several shades pinker, and her smile borders on wild. Exhilarated. Mastery of the dark arts is nothing compared to this newfound sorcery.

“Hm. Wouldn’t you like to know,” Lysithea chides him, shrugging the black and gold blazer off of his shoulders. Considering the sheer number of pieces the Monastery’s uniforms had, both magi would remain decent for some time — even after the loss of some layers. What mattered here was the warmth emanating from both of the warlock’s bodies, and, more specifically, the guarantee that the target of Lysithea’s newfound affections was acutely aware of the heat trapped inside the ever-shrinking space between them.

Softly, Lysithea traces the back of her hand across Hubert’s bright red cheek. He’s almost endearing. “I suppose I could start by dispelling the gravity hex and watching what you do with your ‘free will’. Would you push me off? Would you freeze like a coward?”

It is disadvantageous to be close to others. It was a simple enough truism for Hubert to live by, both as the Empress-to-be’s right hand, tasked with the gruesome work that couldn’t sully royal hands, where sentimentality could easily mean failure; and as a mage, where the distance between oneself and a blade was often all that decided the outcome of a fight. Much like on the battlefield, a lack of practice had left his defenses wanting, should the gap be closed.

Lysithea seemed quite eager to close it, for reasons he still can’t quite fathom. He’s well aware of his reputation- strange, ghastly, intimidating- none of which seem like they should be particularly appealing to a young woman. But her delicate fingers tug the jacket off his shoulders, letting the fabric pool around his still-bound arms before moving to the buttons of his dress shirt.

Lowering her voice to a whisper, Lysithea strategically leans in. Her nimble fingers make short work of her colleague’s white, oxford button-down, and she speaks into Hubert’s neck to partially obscure his view. “Would you try to weasel out of this, blaming your shortage of time?”

Emboldened, the young prodigy holds her lips deathly still to Hubert’s throat, like an apex predator searching for just the right artery to puncture. “That won’t work on me, unfortunately. I practically wrote the book of Blaming Our Cursory Existence For My Refusal To Attend Events I Find Tedious. Working title, mind you. Perhaps you won’t do any of those things. Unlikely, but not impossible. Would you surprise me?”

Despite outward appearances, a young man’s heart still beat in his chest, and he was not immune to lust any more than he was immune to magic- merely quite resistant. He’d allowed himself a... release, on occasion, alone in his room in the dead of night; but temptation is much easier to ignore when its not curled in your lap, wrapping its legs around your waist. It’s Lysithea’s lips hovering impossibly close to the thin skin over his pulse, how hot her words are against his neck that finally breaks him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ❤️ is always appreciated! Questions, comments, concerns? Leave them below 👇👇


	2. Fascination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The culmination of a confrontation. It gets physical.

Maybe it’s the cool authority in her voice, or the fact she’d bested him as a mage, or perhaps he was simply human, fallible and wanting; but Hubert finds himself tilting his head back to give her space, wishing her lips would meet the tender skin. Or her teeth. Even her hands. Something. Anything.

Thankfully, the gift of Hubert’s neck is not one Lysithea intends to ignore. Her rosy eyes, while heavy, would be damned before they missed even a split second of this. Of him. Carefully, eagerly, the young woman kisses and sucks at sensitive flesh, slowly working her way down to his partly unbuttoned chest.

After a single snap of her fingers, the cumbersome indigo haze fizzles into the cool, night air, leaving behind a freed man. Lysithea smirks, scooting closer into Hubert’s arms before crossing her legs behind his back.

Consequently, the taller of the two finds himself growing hard under her, as she shifts her hips against his, and he freezes as she dispels the hex- like a coward, it would seem- as his mind struggles to catch up to his body. It doesn’t help that her face is so close, her eyes so wide, bearing an uncanny likeness to the beautiful hue he’d studied for so long.

“Oh, wait, I know: I can just ‘make sure that your choice is a favorable one’.” Lysithea lowers her voice an octave for a poor impersonation of Hubert. That would be where the jokes end, however. The young mage reaches for the other’s hand, slowly trailing it up and along her pale thigh until it disappears into her skirt. Unabashedly, she continues to guide his hand until it reaches the silken waistband of her lavender panties — only then does she let him go, innocently lowering her own palms to the training grounds’ floor. Not so innocently, Lysithea tilts her lower half into his newly positioned hand. Her eyes hone onto his, refusing at every corner to allow Hubert the chance to look away. 

“Mock me if you wish, but you have done just that.” He manages to keep his voice somewhat steadier this time, despite his heartbeat ringing in his ears and his hand under Lysithea’s skirt. As per her difficult, taunting nature, Lysithea pretends that the retainer’s statement is a surprise to her.

“Oh? Have I now?” Lysithea asks, curving the edge of her mouth upward as she targets his sensitive neck. “Heh. You should stop making it so easy to sway your choices, then.” 

“Ah— hah-“ Hubert’s breath catches in his throat as Lysithea lunges and sucks against it, a flower bed of soft bruises already blooming against his pale skin. The hand at the small of her back tenses for a moment, crumpling the coat of her uniform into his palm; and he offers a silent thanks to whoever designed them for including such high collars. “I am not known for making things easy. Perhaps you should give yourself more credit.”

Feigned surprise soon turns genuine, much to Lysithea’s chagrin, when Hubert excuses the hand from under her skirt, letting silk gloved fingertips trace down her thigh before bringing them up to his mouth. He catches a seam between his front teeth, delicately removing the fine silk glove, discarded by the same large, bony hand it had just enveloped. 

“I can admit when I am defeated. One moment.”

It suddenly occurs to Lysithea that she’s never seen Hubert without his gloves. Her magenta eyes dilate at the sight, darkened by desire and awe. Worst of all, the movement is so deceptively simple — a swift action the princess’ vassal surely performed multiple times a day without a second thought. Yet Lysithea openly ogles his hand, the unsheathed, moonlit skin marred by the telltale purplish-black of untempered dark magic use. Searing the association with intimacy into her mind, Lysithea bites her lip, reluctantly opting to be patient. 

"If you choose to while away your time with me, who am I to deny you?” It takes every ounce of his control to sound nearly-nonchalant as he drags his hand back up her delicate thigh, slips it back under the hem of her skirt. “I am, after all, merely a humble servant.” Each time her lips met his skin his chest tightened and his voice wavered. Hubert realizes he can’t remember the last time he’s actually been touched, skin-to-skin, and it seems he’d only grown more sensitive in the absence. He hooks an index finger over the waistband he’d been led to, tugging down on it oh so slightly.

Slender thighs tremble at the elder student’s reintroduction of his hand; her back arches in approval, and she's forced to release the vassal's throat in favor of keening against his palm. It’s almost a relief when Lysithea pulls back, like Hubert can finally think again... though he’s not sure its worth it. What is worth it is watching Lysithea’s eyes go wide, his eyebrows raising as she intently watches him remove his glove. Interesting. That could be useful later.

He has no time to ponder any possible implications before Lysithea is grabbing at him again, impatiently pulling his hand back into place. 

“M- Mmm. That's an admirable state of mind.” Granted, it’s a sentiment that Lysithea is sure Hubert will later come to regret. After this encounter, she may very well try to while away her time with him amid... less than opportune moments.“Y- Yes, I suppose you are merely a humble servant. No Crest, no title. Little more than a glorified butler employed under Edelgard’s good graces.” 

Tricky territory, those words are. The need to assert herself, to remind him that she’s no child, to prove herself as not just an equal but a force to be reckoned with burns bright, but the young prodigy need not risk undue insults to the man below her... how awful it would be to cut their experience short. An experience, Lysithea realizes, that even the most lecherous of risqué literature fails to hold a candle to. Feeling the ever-growing bump of his cock underneath her is foreign and thrilling; not to mention the fact that Hubert has indulged her thus far is dizzying in the best possible way. Her lips part a bit, sleepy eyes flickering between his handsome, sharply-angled face and his increasingly obvious hard-on.

“Servants have a duty to address messes, do they not?” Lysithea leads his naked, hauntingly pale hand to bridge the distance — that being the softly throbbing, slippery set of flushed lips between her hips.

“Of course, Lady Ordelia.” Hubert’s voice is a little less sarcastic than he’d intended as he twists his wrist, slipping his fingers down into her panties, gently gracing fingertips over her folds. A tiny, petty part of him wants to argue, assert his title and his lineage, but a much larger and more present part of him is content to indulge her power trip. Excited by it, even. “It would be my pleasure to serve.”

“A— ah. You see— you feel what you’ve done to me, Hubert? F-... Fix it. Perhaps I’ll tend to your own problem if you do.” Lifting her spare hand to the young man’s lap in demonstration, she firmly grips his length through his trousers, tracing her thumb up and down multiple times until she settles for the clasps and zippers hiding away the object of interest.

Another conspicuous shiver runs up his spine as petite hands holds him through the fabric of his trousers, pulled embarrassingly taut in his excitement. Hubert bites down on his lip as the pad of her thumb traces up his length. He gently rolls her clit under his middle finger, gauging her reaction.

“Ahh- H- Hubert...” Lysithea fails to bite back a whine, writhing against the fingers so gently exploring her, replacing the silence of the training grounds with soft, virgin panting and slick, wet ministrations. Unfortunately, gentle is not what Lysithea seeks out of the male warlock. “Mn...more...”

He hadn’t necessarily intended to be so gentle, but Hubert rarely undertook any task he hadn’t thoroughly studied in advance, and his hesitation was apparently doing him no favors as Lysithea grabbed his hand and pressed his fingers firmly to her clit. On second thought, it had maybe done him one favor: allowing him to hear the soft, whining way she said his name in desperation.

Never satisfied, Lysithea instead takes hold of Hubert’s wrist, applying greater pressure from his fingers to the clit vying for attention, and before long, guiding him deep into the heated depths of her walls. Vivid shades of pink rapidly spread across the former Deer’s face; Hubert’s references to her with the honorific normally reserved for the imperial princess, despite their lacing of sarcasm, play no small part in that.

“J- just like that...” Lysithea squirms, initially out of pleasure, but eventually out of utility. Those panties weren’t doing either of them much good, now were they? As smugly as she can manage, the young woman slips them down and eventually off her lithe frame.

Hubert tries to commit to memory what particular arc of his finger or angle of his wrist elicits the most profane pants and paints the deepest pink on the young mage’s cheeks, but his own eagerness and the waistband digging into his hand make it hard to focus. It’s a blessing, then, when she pulls away to peel her panties free, a lecherous lady’s favour as she tucks them into his pocket.

Following suit, Lysithea does away with her own pesky, high-collared coat, adding it to the shallow pile of clothes nearby. It’s too hot to continue otherwise. Only then does she press her hands to Hubert’s chest, pushing him further back into the pillar supporting him until he’s nearly flat on his back — and then, while he’s down there, she does away with the few remaining buttons so that she can study the entirety of his chest. It, too, shares the marbled, deathly pattern of his hand, one of the many consequences to using the dark magicks that are so antithetical to life itself. No matter. Lysithea admires him all the same. “You... you have absolutely no right to look the way you do right now. That should be a punishable offense, you know.”

Seizing the moment of freedom as Lysithea hastily removes her jacket, he shrugs the rest of the way out of his own, tucking it under his head and freeing his newly-undone shirt to billow freely as he’s pushed on his back. His ungloved hand returns to her thigh nearly-autonomously, his skin already starved for hers; but he brings his gloved hand up to his mouth, in mock consideration.

“Punish me then.” His lips curl up into a dreadful smile- dreadful in his usual, sinister way, and in the lack of practice, like his face strained to twist into the proper shape. “The servant attends to messes, the Lady to... discipline.” The words surprise even Hubert as he says them, but finds that they fit well, no waver in his voice.

He had a type, it would seem.

Vulnerable, malleable, human — Lysithea's fellow mage had toggled through more emotions in the past few minutes than she’s seen him do all year. That’s nothing short of breathtaking, knowing the very expressions he wears are something so secret that there’s a chance not even Edelgard herself knew they existed.

Even if, by some whim of the universe, the heir of Hresvelg had already witnessed those delightfully sinful faces, Lysithea is sure that there’s at least one thing she has not had the privilege to see. She quickly does away with the clasps and trinkets suppressing Hubert’s length, and she’s nearly drooling at the bulging smallclothes waiting for her underneath. Gods, he was impressive and she hadn’t even truly seen him yet.

Whatever misbegotten confidence Hubert had found quickly dissolved away as the smaller mage tugs down his trousers before repositioning herself; grinding down against him. His breath catches in his throat and his fingertips dig into the bare thigh he’d been caressing, struggling to think about anything besides the heat from her sex, soaking through the fine silk of his underclothes. Her challenging, almost accusatory tone, as if this had all been his fault, is enough to pull him back, just for a moment.

Knowing that one, thin piece of fabric is all that separates her from Hubert’s unashamed form has the girl breathless, hitching herself forward until she’s sat directly on top of that barely clothed cock. “Do you— oh, god, you’re so hard... Do you want me to fuck you, Hubert?”

The sound of his name on her lips is one she’s quickly becoming accustomed to. As a matter of fact, it’s a sound she softly murmurs as she leans down, expanding the flower bed of blooming bites and bruises until it’s practically a garden spanning his whole torso. A peppered kiss here, a rogue hickey there, and firm pressure into the sinister vassal’s pelvis for good measure.

“Y-yes, I do. Your deductive prowess-“ His breath catches in his throat and hisses between his teeth as she nips at his pale skin, grinds against his cock, “-is unmatched, Lady Ordelia.” For the first time in his memory, Hubert is truly desperate, like he just may break if he’s denied.

“Your honesty is appreciated. Too bad that won’t be enough.” Lysithea smirks, despite her own blatant desire to feel far more than Hubert’s digits inside of her. Oh, but how beautiful it is to deny him, to grant the torment as the very ‘punishment’ Hubert himself requested. “You’ll have to sound more convincing. Beg. Say my name.”

She muses, mirroring Hubert’s crooked smile with one equally mischievous grin before stealing the warlock’s gloved hand away from his mouth and up to her own. Much like Hubert had done moments ago, she nips at the edge of his fingertip, seamlessly slipping the glove off but not yet casting it off into oblivion.

Hubert relents, nearly immediately, and despite his needy earnestness, there’s an overly formal stiffness to his words. Begging was yet another skill he’d never had cause to develop. “Please, Lysithea. Please-“ The words catch in his throat, a betrayal of his inexperience, “-fuck me.” A soft sound escapes him, not quite a sigh, as she takes up his gloved hand. It seems he would need to wait a little longer, and he regrets taunting her quite so confidently.

Cruelly, albeit unintentionally, Lysithea giggles at the hesitation of Hubert’s words. Not because of his inexperience, but because it was Hubert — a distant, stone-faced ghoul of a man who is not supposed to emote in such a way. She lifts her head to admire the deep, deep crimson burning into his face. While she holds his attention, the young woman carefully dangles the lone glove between her lips — should Hubert not keep tabs on the thing, he might not get it back. Lysithea then finally unbuttons and shrugs off her own white blouse, leaving her in nothing more than her skirt, stockings, boots, and a pastel bra without the panties to match.

The latter would be addressed soon enough.

Hardly giving either mage time to doubt, she unclasps the remainder of her lingerie. The breasts no longer hidden underneath are just as pale, just as delicate as the rest of her. Sensitive, teardrop-shaped, modestly sized — though, there goes an old saying that anything more than a handful is a waste anyhow.

Finally, Lysithea removes the vassal’s glove from her front teeth — yet, she refuses to add it to the pile of clothes nearby. Instead, she equips it on her own comically undersized hand, flexing her fingers inside of it.

“Forgive me, I’m curious. Do you ever touch yourself, wearing this thing? If not, I’m sure you will now. It must be so... exhausting to never allow yourself the most primal of human desires, isn’t it? I know the feeling all too well.”

He can only stare breathlessly as Lysithea pulls his glove away, letting it hang between delicate lips as she disrobes. He can only stare dumbfounded as she slips it on over her petite hand, blushing hard at her question. He can only nod mutely in response, cheeks too hot and tongue too heavy with embarrassment to respond. It should be infuriating to be perceived so clearly, the exact opposite of the shadowy anonymity Hubert had worked so hard to cultivate, but there was something so thrilling about being laid bare before her.

“Heh. You should speak when spoken to, ‘humble servant’. I look forward to hearing the riveting details of how a ghostly man indulges himself in secret. Or, better yet— I look forward to a demonstration. You wouldn’t deny your Lady that, would you?”

Frustration prickles at Huberts cheeks and squeezes in his chest as she laughs, equal parts embarrassed and excited by and embarrassed to be excited by the way the tiny mage giggles down at him. He only indulged himself so when he was truly desperate, unable to focus on whatever pressing task has his attention at the moment. He foresees it happening more frequently after tonight. “I fear it’s... less salacious than you might imagine. But orders would be orders, I suppose.”

Despite his cool tone, Hubert already finds himself planning a next time, even as delicate hands pin his wrists to the stone floor. It still felt bold to do so, like Lysithea might change her mind and leave at any moment; like the idea of willingly spending time with him was still simply unimaginable.

“We’ll see about that,” Lysithea counters, an ominous lull to her voice. In Hubert’s defense, he is correct in that the base idea isn’t a novel one — a bleak vassal lying supine, likely glaring at the ceiling, treating the whole concept of self-pleasure with all the enthusiasm reserved for dusting cathedrals’ pews. A hilariously morose sight.

However, dynamics have an interesting way of shifting when an audience is introduced. She smirks at the thought: remarking on the shift of his hips, teasing the hitch of his voice, challenging the pace of his hand... perhaps even going so far as to turn the solo performance into a duet — albeit, one where Hubert would only be allowed to observe.

Lowering her own face, Lysithea’s pearly pink irises stare into icy verdant ones, all the while enveloping Hubert in a curtain of unnaturally alabaster hair. “Mm. I’m not sure I like knowing that this side of you exists. No one told me that a phantom could look so... cute. Do you have any idea how inconvenient that is?”

The rest of the world falls away, erased under a curtain of white. His own little purgatory, so close to pleasure and yet so achingly far away as she takes the opportunity to tease him one last time. He finds it so utterly charming, choosing to figure out what that says about him some other time. His hands finally move again and he runs them up her back, pulling her closer, holding her lithe frame against his. “My most sincere apologies for this unbearable burden. I hope you can forgive me.”

“Apology accepted. But be warned: you’re on thin ice. Don’t you dare look any cuter, or there will be severe consequences,” Lysithea jests, adorning Hubert’s face and neck with a handful of kisses, melting into the slow roll of his hips. He tilts his head back as she showers him with affection, savoring each moment he’d get; lifting his hips at her command as she shifts his trousers downward.

All is calm in this secluded, special bubble Lysithea and Hubert find themselves in. There is no danger, no intra-House politics, no appearances to maintain, and Lysithea feels so safe as she swoops in to catch the dark mage’s lips in her own. To nobody’s surprise, the faint flavors of confection and strawberry are left in her wake. “Mmh...”

Hubert leans eagerly into the kiss- his first, as Lysithea had so cuttingly observed in their initial exchange- and cranes his neck upward, lingering for as long as he can between her lips. He feels a little guilty, tasting the sweetness of her lips and recalling his last meal; several cigarettes smoked in rapid succession as he scribed out magical formulae, hardly an equally romantic equivalent. Perhaps he could learn to take a sweet with his coffee, if only for her sake, he resolved, as he drags his fingertips down her back and rolls his hips slowly, longingly against hers.

Encouraging him further, Lysithea extends the duration of their kiss as long as she feasibly can. Oddly enough, the bitter taste of tobacco doesn’t phase her. The determined mage didn’t know what to expect from his lips, quite frankly— ice, numbing and chapped? Copper, bloodied and damaged? The grit of smoke is simply accepted, and she deepens their kiss in spite of it.

Gods above, Lysithea wanted to have all of him all at once, and in a roundabout way, she almost accomplishes this: lap to lap, chest to chest, lips to lips... all that remains are her hands, which promptly sift and tug at Hubert’s black locks. The feathery, angelic touch of Hubert’s fingers along her back have her mewling in approval, summoning a powerful shiver down her spine. Lysithea clings to him, burrowing her face into the young man’s neck, murmuring low and hot.

“Off with these,” she growls, so, so prepared to strip Hubert as bare as the day he was born — but a tiny voice of reason pleads with her not to. That to risk belonging to one another, completely naked under the early moonlight, outside without so much as a lock on the training grounds’ doors...

Oh, she would still claim Hubert as her own before the sun rises; that much is certain. But to watch him strip for her, to leave hickeys on the soft insides of his thighs, to edge him to the brink of his sanity, to fall asleep intertwined, to...

...To explore their sexuality beyond the initial quick, dirty, adrenaline-fueled fuck is a luxury reserved for the fabled ‘next time’. For now, she settles for wiggling Hubert’s trousers down just below his ass, pooling around the top of his thighs and giving Lysithea the access she desires. The stone floor was chilling against his back, and the autumn air against his skin, but nothing compared to the warmth Lysithea radiated; it overwhelmed him entirely, the rest of the world falling away. He never allowed himself indulgences, and for good reason it seemed, given how lacking his restraint was once he broke. Even as she pulls his thoroughly soaked clothes away, finally revealing his length, only shivers of excitement find him.

Finally, finally the girl allows them both the sight of Hubert’s heavy, yearning cock.

Biting her lip, she pushes herself backward until she’s sat with Hubert’s cock in front of her. She holds the sensitive anatomy up to her tiny frame, wherein the length seems like it would impale her before anything else. Her fingertips dance from his base to his tip, already slick from Lysithea’s own sex thoroughly soaking him earlier. Due to her short stature, it easily reaches her naval — an observation that Lysithea decides to further fluster him with, tilting her head curiously as she holds it to her stomach. “Do you think it will fit, Hubert?”

It’s entirely obscene, the way Lysithea holds his cock up to herself; her innocent question and soft fingers elicit a heavy drop of precum, rolling down his length and adding to the permeating slickness. He was aware of their size difference, obviously, but he hadn’t realized the gulf between them was so large, or that there would be such depraved pleasures to be found in it. He tries to speak, to offer some witticism or cutting remark, but finds his words entirely fail him as she compares their sizes.

Seemingly unphased, she smirks confidently and lowers herself onto his cock with minimal resistance. Her reactions, however, are far from minimal. Lysithea grabs Hubert’s hands, leading them to hold the curve of her ass and help keep her in place. Her face? Flushed. Chest? Flushed. Pussy? Despite her skirt annoyingly obscuring it, absolutely flushed. Under the moon’s light, she emits a soft glow, a pink-white fire alive with her squirming and writhing. “H- Hubert— aa... hold me... p- please.”

She digs her nails into Hubert’s broad shoulders, harsh enough to leave red indents. Tossing her own head back, she moans dangerously loudly, much to the disadvantage of both magi should anyone not be in the mess hall, infirmary, or their own dormitories.

It’s almost a disappointment to watch himself disappear under the edge of her skirt, for the brief moment before she stretches around him. He allows one large hand to be led to her ass, fingertips digging in to yielding flesh as she lowers herself onto him, the other settling into the curve of her waist, supporting her as she sinks her nails into his muscle. Even that is pleasurable, and he bites down hard on his lower lip to keep himself silent- even if Lysithea’s moan a moment later renders the effort moot. 

“Nn... fuck— fuck into me. Thrust your hips and— aa— hah...”

Lysithea certainly sets an example. Rising and falling, lifting and sinking, the white-haired mage smacks down on Hubert’s cock repeatedly, her abdomen bulging ever so slightly each time she takes him. 

It’s not until she orders him to move that Hubert even remembers he can, shifting to plant one foot against the floor, offering some leverage as he presses up into her, matching her rhythm as best as he can. Feeling her heat, her tightness, seeing the small bulge in her stomach and the flush in her cheeks, hearing her soft needy whines and the way she keens out his name; finally Hubert understands why people bother, the immeasurable difference between connecting with another and one’s own hand.

Ordelia’s heir soon comes to realize that she may have bitten off more than she can chew. As soon as Hubert steadies his boot onto the stone floor, adjusting their angle and unlocking a deeper thrust, the rosy-eyed mage nearly loses it.

Already so, so wonderfully stuffed with his dick, Hubert’s adjustment now allows his length to stimulate her clit in tandem. Lysithea absolutely must gnaw down on something, lest the entirety of Garreg Mach hear her, and so she settles for the knuckles of her gloved hand. “Aa- mhh- y-yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes...!”

As her breasts bounce and dance in rhythm to the duo’s intimacy, Lysithea stretches backwards to highlight this — alongside the recurring bulge of his thick cock inside of her and the generous, shiny evidence of her overwhelming arousal slathered all over Hubert’s lap, of course. Brows knitted, hand bitten, eyes watering from how unbelievably good Hubert felt, Lysithea lifts her ungloved fingers up to her chest, teasing and rolling a cute pink nipple between them.

Had he held even an ounce faith in his heart, Hubert might’ve thanked Sothis, or the Saints, or the heroes, or whomever, for the divine sight of Lysithea riding him. Were he an artist, he might try and fail to capture the moment in poetry, in paints, in sculptured marble, invariably tossing them aside when they fail to capture her exact radiance.

But Hubert is none of those things, just a ghost, a spectral force on the edge of history, nudging others along. So he settles for the entirely insufficient praise he has as his fingertips curl into her pale skin, as he holds her steady against his bucking hips; as she gazes down at him, delicate teardrop breast in hand, her mouth muffled against his glove. His voice is cracked, choking, echoing from somewhere deep within him, and for once in his life, he hopes that his emotions carry through as he moans her name, the only things his mind. “Ly-Lysithea...”

The dark mage lolls her head to the side, gazing at Hubert with hungry, burning, vulnerable pink irises, sighing and whimpering through gritted teeth as she nears her limit. “I- I want you to cum with me, Hubert. Please, aa- aah, I’m so c- close—“

So close, in fact, that the mere act of holding her body upright has become a challenge. Lysithea falls forward, still deeply sheathed onto Hubert’s cock, throwing her arms around his neck and clinging to him like her life depends on it. Mercilessly, her fingers rake and twist in his hair; her heart pounds and her breasts squish against his chest; and her trembling lips seek out the man’s unfortunate neck as a muzzle to bite.

Her voice, her plea, pulls him back a step from that yawning abyss of pleasure just ahead, at once thrilling and the terrifying unknown. It will be fine, with her. Hubert’s stomach is still wound tighter than a watch spring as he takes a few deep breaths, steadies himself. He is an immaculate servant, and hers is a reasonable request. “Of course, of course, of course,” He responds, in rhythm with his hips, in between the shivering sigh he lets out each time he presses his length into her.

He shifts as she collapses onto him; tilting his head that Lysithea’s bite might find more traction in his neck, feeling the stinging heat of blood being drawn and shivering harder for it. He wraps his long arms around her, one at her waist, the other over her back to delicately cradle her head, holding her close as she tugs at his hair. It’s all simply too much, too much, and he must get them there

And now, as quiet as she can possibly manage, the white-haired nymphet pants into her newfound obsession’s ear: “Mnn... nhh... ha- Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, Hu-...”.

The hard leather sole of Hubert's other riding boot finds purchase and he capitalizes on the extra leverage to thrust roughly, bringing all he has to bear against her. “I’m here, I’ve got you, I am yours...” He mumbles his affections, hot in her ear, as he feels his toes curl, his breaking point approaching yet somehow held off, delayed a moment longer. But he is an immaculate servant, and he will not break first. Orders are orders.

The candy-like pink of her irises disappears into the back of her head. Never, ever in her life had she achieved such a sensory overload. If her life were to end in this very moment, Lysithea would accept her fate without contest.

But for Hubert’s sake, she supposed she could continue on living.

A few tears sting the corners of her eyes, but there isn’t a trace of sadness to be found. The way Hubert sighs his reassurances in tune with his thrusts is unreal. His intimate mantras would undoubtedly return to haunt her at the worst possible times during future lectures, but that would be a punishment Lysithea decides for him later.

“You’re here... you’ve got me... you are mm— mmm...” She echoes breathlessly, helplessly rocking back and forth when Hubert finds the slope needed to buck into her with the bone-chilling cross between beastly fervor and saintly discipline.

“Ah...!”

She’s finally arrived, and she is deaf to the world, nothing but blood pounding and bells chiming between her ears.

Already, it had been overwhelmingly pleasurable to shove his length into Lysithea, feel her stretch to accommodate him, each stroke earning another moan or whimper. It was all too thrilling, the way the young mage had broken him down before being broken in turn, the way they clung to each other in the throes of their passion.

Hubert was in no way prepared for the way Lysithea clamped around him as she was pushed over the edge, almost painfully tight; not for the way each of his muscles would contract as he came, curving his body around her as he ruts his hips, riding out the aftershocks in the heat of her sex. He has to bite down on his lip so hard he draws blood to muffle himself, a keening moan echoing up from deep in his broad chest as he pours a lifetime of repressed lust into her tiny frame.

Lysithea’s own spend would have been a small, forceful trickle — a fleeting, see-through declaration of her bliss. Sharing such a tight space with Hubert’s own sex, however, the gremory’s ejaculate is lost in the overwhelming sea of white.

The dense, hot, intoxicating ropes of cum are forced to leave Lysithea as quickly as they arrive; there is simply no room. His release overflows, and ivory rivulets pour down the girl’s pale inner thighs, painting her mons, her ass, her skirt, and even her stomach. She is marked beyond a shadow of a doubt, but not even that can suppress her desire for more.

Hubert’s murmurs, raspy and tingly in Lysithea’s ear, melt the white-haired mage into little more than a limp puddle in Hubert’s long, secure arms — so far removed from the accusatory instigator who marched through those training ground doors a lifetime ago.

“I don’t...” Lysithea curls up into Hubert’s torso, refusing to disconnect from his length. She nips at the same reddened, thoroughly bitten skin of his neck, panting softly. “I don’t want to move. Ever.”

It’s only once he’s done, their passion painted in white across his abdomen and stars swimming in his vision that he falls back limply against the pile of his discarded uniform. He winces slightly as Lysithea continues to nip at his brutalized neck, still keenly oversensitive but too pleasurable to pull away. A slow, satisfied laugh rolls out of his throat, like a distant roll of thunder. “I certainly wouldn’t complain.”

He would love to take time to bask in the afterglow, to feel the soft rise of Lysithea’s chest as she breathes, slowly and deep, to let his fingertips continue to idly trace uncharged runes against Lysithea’s back, to hold her in the soft moonlight. He would love to, but he would also be hard pressed to think of a more compromising position to be found in; covered in cum and blood and not nearly enough clothing, entangled with a warlock just a few too many years his junior.

“I imagine Catherine would take some umbrage with us distracting from her fencing lessons, though. It may be best for us to away sooner than later.” His hand moves up her back, twists the end of some snowy-white locks around one finger, his free hand giving her ass a final, cheeky squeeze. “Besides... there could always be a next time.”

Hubert’s expressions are far too priceless, and she hums contentedly as she sweeps her fingers through the black fringe over his eye.

“She would absolutely take issue with it, yes. Unfortunately for her, Catherine isn’t the only one who can wield Thunderbrand. I have half a mind to bar those doors and keep you around as a personal plaything.” Lysithea smirks, lifting her ass up into Hubert’s hand.

That being said, Lysithea is far from ignorant about their newfound situation. Slowly, reluctantly, she rises up and rolls off of the elder student, shuddering at the sudden emptiness that replaces Hubert’s cock. “Ah... a next time. That’s a surprising suggestion, coming from someone with an itinerary like yours.”

Lysithea looks over her shoulder as she kneels and gathers her clothes, her heavy eyes equally filled with skepticism and hope. “You really think you could... make time for me?”

Meanwhile, the girl thoughtfully redresses herself to minimize any suspicion caused by misplaced buttons or rogue shirt tails. Though risky, she confidently casts a mild flames spell on the sullied parts of her uniform to burn away the lewd evidence with surgical precision. It takes longer than she’d care to admit to find the strength to stand on her feet. Almost faun-like, Lysithea wobbles, leaning on the nearest column to support herself. Oh, how she’d kill to sleep on the ground instead. The prospect of a bed significantly drops in appeal when the walk is so far, doubly so when she remembers that it will be her alone in that room.

Targeting the doors, Lysithea trudges towards them, scooping up her leather bookbag near the entryway. Should she say goodbye? Wish him goodnight? Establish a rendezvous?

Alas, she does none of these things, parting ways with a silent wave and a soft smile.

”If you’ll find time for me as well.” It was all Hubert could manage as he’d redressed himself in the moonlit air of the training grounds, incinerated the shirt he’d used to wipe them clean, a sacrifice at the altar of ill considered hook ups. It was all he could manage, but it constitutes a promise nonetheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ❤️ is always appreciated! Questions, comments, concerns? Leave them below 👇👇


	3. Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hubert and Lysithea sexually frustrate each other for a month. Also, they have a coffee break.

Several weeks would pass before both magi found the chance to be alone together again.

After all, Hubert is still the counselor to the most important figure of all of Adrestia. His path is a constant, unforgiving race against the bloodshed that threatens to reach Edelgard’s line of sight. Lysithea, meanwhile, is living on borrowed time, ever vigilant in her quest to perfect her skills and annihilate the heartless enemies who taunt her in their great numbers and even greater secrecy.

They’re busy.

Not to say the daunting, cryptic vassal of the empire never crossed Lysithea’s mind. Quite the contrary.

Far too many nights the ivory-haired mage would lie awake, tormented, her blushing face buried in pillows with a hand deep between her thighs, wishing so badly that it was Hubert yielding to her instead.

Until they had their next moment of true isolation, Lysithea tried numerous strategies to get a rise out of Hubert, needing him to suffer as she has.

“Do you think it will fit?” She would ask, perfectly stoic, directly to Hubert’s face in the middle of lecture. With various contexts, of course... never the original. Will there be space for this new shipment of spell tomes on the existing bookshelf? Could this specific combination of battalions charge without the risk of friendly fire on a battlefield? Can the professor’s current agenda find room for an extra Faith session amid the other lesson plans this week? All perfectly innocuous to the unassuming bystander.

Red Wolf Moon is upon the academy, and so the first inklings of winter sneak onto the campus along with it. What this meant for most of the student populace was an extra sweater or longer sleeves, and Lysithea was no exception. She would don an extra shawl, not unlike that of Mercedes, and perform her daily activities as she normally would... with the professor’s lectures serving as the exception.

On those particular days, Lysithea made a habit of sitting within Hubert’s vision. Without a bra, of course. Each time a stray wind chill crept into the room, so too would the albino warlock drop her shawl just enough to emphasize her hard nipples and pink-dusted cheeks to a particular dark mage a few desks away.

When Lysithea knew she could get away with it, her fingertips would emit a weak, electric hum of dark magic that prickled hot and sensual against the skin. Where that hand would ‘accidentally’ graze when she wandered past Hubert under the guise of retrieving pens and spell books? “Oh, you should really watch your step...”

After what felt like an eternity of baiting and strategizing, Lysithea can’t help but notice an exceptionally desperate glint in Hubert’s eye. Perhaps it is nothing. Perhaps it is the note she elegantly wrote and discreetly folded into his coat pocket, listing in obscene detail all the ways she would ravish him. It’s anyone’s guess, she tells herself with a smirk, leaning against the building’s exterior once class is dismissed and her fellow colleagues spill into the courtyard nearby.

Meanwhile...

Though Edelgard may have had the good grace not to probe too deeply into Hubert’s bloodied lip, the princess’ own curved up in curiosity and surprise; she didn’t have the luxury to order him to enjoy himself for once, either. There were too many irons left in the fire, too many moving parts, too many Enbarrian nobles to depose once she was coronated. Hubert had only a precious few months to sow discord in their houses, to ensure the scions that rise in the power vacuum are sympathetic to their causes. Or at least cowed into silence.

Before night falls the day after their encounter in the training grounds, he’s already ridden halfway to the capital, meeting an informant further from Rhea’s prying eyes. Three days later he’s back in the Monastery, just after dusk. Not once, in quiet moments on the road, do his thoughts fail to wander back to Lysithea.

When he’s alone, ensconced in the stone and the stillness of his room, his focus pulls magnetically away from the paperwork spread across his desk, down, past a locked drawer, past an elaborate mechanism hiding another locked compartment within, through the enchanted iron of a hexed lockbox to the violet silk panties contained therein. He grips them tightly in his bare hand as he spills over into his gloved one, the white silk now curiously missing its equal.

Lysithea, for her part, seems hellbent on keeping him distracted. Each time they share a lecture hall, it seems she’s found some new way to torment him- a lowered shawl revealing a taut nipple straining against her uniform, a literally and figuratively charged brush of her hand, a note tucked into a tome or pocket. He couldn’t remember the last time he left a lecture without reddened cheeks and his eyeline low in embarrassment.

But worst of all was the many, many times the diminutive prodigy found a way to innocently ask him, ”do you think it will fit?” Hubert had never realized how often that question could be asked, until it made him rock hard under the darkly stained wooden desk. He was glad to have an excuse to wear his winter cape, a heavy, dark, formless thing, piling its excess cloth in his lap.

That same cloak dissolves his form, leaving him all the more a towering specter as he exits the lecture hall in a huff. Hubert paces through the chilled air quickly, edges of his cloak billowing behind him as he passes under the stone columns and arches of Garreg Mach. He somehow knew she’d be here, leaning on so casually against the wall where he would smoke a hurried cigarette between lectures, try to calm the beating she had set off in his heart.

Stray shivers of anticipation trickle down Lysithea's spine as the recipient of her ‘torture’ draws near. It takes far too much willpower for Lysithea not to indulge herself at the idea of his recent struggles, at the few glimpses of his painfully stiff, untouched cock from just the right angle in class. The shame of being seen is about the only thing stopping her.

“Lysithea.” His tone was cool and even, but clearly laced with frustration as he closes the gap, stands a little too close, towers above her like a shade. “Are you having fun, torturing me?” Despite the strained quality to his voice he maintains a low volume, barely over a whisper. The other students gave him a wide berth, but not wide enough.

Holding a hand to her chin as she’d seen Hubert do numerous times before, she pretends to consider his question as if the answer isn’t blatantly obvious. “Mm... Fine. I won’t lie. Yes, I’m actually having a lot of fun. But I’ve already informed you that it’s your own fault for looking that way, Hubert.”

Opening her eyes partway, she noncommittally gestures her hand in Hubert’s direction. With a soft tone, she admits: “It’s... it’s charming when you look so embarrassed and out of your element. And I find it hard to believe you don’t enjoy your ‘torture’ on some level. Multiple levels, even.”

It’s mortifying, the way excitement pools hot and heavy in Huberts gut at even the way Lysithea mocks him, delicate chin cradled in her fingers; gesturing vaguely at his admittedly vague form. “I have rarely earned anything besides distrust from my looks. Forgive the confusion.”

A flush rushes to his cheeks, unbidden, at the mention of how attractive he supposedly is when he flusters, an inconvenient and vicious cycle that, he supposed, got him here in the first place. “I-“ He begins to respond defensively and a little too loudly, forgetting himself in the moment. Lysithea’s presence seemed to make him prone to those kinds of errors.

She dusts off the edge of her skirt absently, murmuring a reluctant elaboration: “You’ve cast some kind of hex on me. I don’t know when, or how, but I know you have. And I can guarantee whatever ‘torture’ you think you’ve endured, I’ve suffered it four times over. If we weren’t in public right now...”

Lysithea hasn’t changed her position from against the wall, but with Hubert as close as he is, she finds it easy to prod at his boot with the tip of her own. “I would commit what some might call karmic retribution.”

“I- I would not deny a certain... pleasure, in your attentions.” His voice returns to a whisper, and Hubert’s foot shifts a fraction of an inch forward to meet hers, the most reassurance he has to give in such a public place. His eyes snap to the hem of her skirt as she runs her hands along it, and he aches to run his own hands up and under the fabric once again. “Nor in knowing that you have suffered the same.”

The warlock nips her lip, drumming her fingers against the wall behind her. For their own good, Lysithea must banish the thought for now, so she takes a tiny side-step further into the grass and half-heartedly swaps topics.

“...Your face is pink,” Lysithea states, craning her neck upward to look at Hubert as blankly as she can. Holding that neutral expression here, for whatever reason, is far more difficult than during their lecture halls. The young mage ponders if it’s from the competition with her heart, rapping so hard and fast against her chest. Her stirring excitement eventually breaks through a cracked smirk. “You must be freezing.”

Even quieter than Hubert’s own hushed tone, she glances at his lap and tacks on: “That, or you’re burning up underneath that coat. We should finish this conversation indoors regardless.”

The flush in his cheeks is stoked a little hotter when Lysithea gazes up at him, and he quietly thanks the chill air for plausible deniability. She’s just... cute. It’s not something Hubert thinks of often, and at risk of going soft, it is not terrible. It’s cute, the way she tries so hard to keep a straight face. It’s cute, how she bites her soft lip. It’s cute, how far back she has to throw her head to make eye contact.

Without truly consulting the elder mage on the matter, she travels ahead toward the dormitories, her pace brisk as usual to compensate for such short steps. “We’ll resume this in your quarters. I want you to show me how you make your coffee.”

“It would be cruel of me to keep you out any longer.” The edge of his lip quirks up in the slightest shade of a grin, and he follows her without prompting. Hubert has to clip his long strides short to match Lysithea’s, even at her rapid pace; another similarity she shares with Edelgard. He shouldn’t be surprised when Lysithea informs him that his room is their destination; if anything he should be surprised she hadn’t invited herself in sooner. “I would love to demonstrate.”

Had it been socially acceptable for the two Eagles to do so, Lysithea would have acted on her first thought: to slip underneath Hubert’s cloak like a baby penguin. Alternatively, she fancied the idea of taking his broad, bony hand into her own and leading him across campus to their undisclosed destination. Considering their unspoken agreement to keep their hookup a secret, Lysithea doubts she’ll get the opportunity to parade Hubert around anytime in the near future.

The two of them make their way swiftly through the mercifully empty grounds, the recent chill in the air driving most of their peers to stay indoors, particularly in the mess hall; and there was little incident as they slunk back to the dormitories, save for when Lysithea spots her own quarters in her peripheral vision. She’s struck with a wonderful idea.

“Wait! I’ll be right back!” Lysithea announced, turning on her heel to detour for her own dormitory. As quickly as she makes her absence known, she returns, wicker basket in hand. Apparently, it had been a handwoven gift from some time ago, courtesy of the Golden Deer’s less-than-official retainer.

Equal parts sturdy and pleasing to the eye, Lysithea had taken it upon herself earlier this morning to line it with soft tea towels and an assortment of sweets and breads she’d baked with Annette. Their original purpose was to serve as late-night study snacks, but sharing them with Hubert seems infinitely more appealing.

“We’ll need something to go with the coffee,” she explains upon her return, smiling wide. The rest of their walk is, indeed, smooth and vacant — the most Lysithea has seen the Officer’s Academy all year, save for when the on-campus sauna was built. Hubert’s retrieves his keys before they round the corner to his door, hastily undoing the lock and ushering them in.

The room within is just a little too clean, the obsessive orderliness of one who has to hide anything worth seeing, the piles of tomes and correspondence spilling off the writing desk and onto several other nearby shelves notwithstanding. Hubert shuts the door behind them and snaps his fingers, a flame dancing to life in the hearth without his needing to look. The jarring divide between the biting winds outside and the crackling flames indoors bristles Lysithea for a few uncomfortable seconds, but she swiftly finds herself feeling at home. 

“Now tell me.” He shrugs out of his cloak and sets it on a rack near the door, “Am I actually to make coffee, or was that simply a cover? I do have some beans set aside.” Along with some cream and sugar, for when she inevitably balks at the bitterness. 

“Cover? Oh, no, I do want to have coffee with you. Whatever would I need a cover for?” Lysithea chimes, lowering her basket of goodies on the nearest counter and removing her white boots to place near the exit — only doing so since were no more lectures for the day, allowing them to take their time. Thank goodness. “Fucking you senseless shouldn’t compromise the... erm... brew’s intricate flavor, correct? You are the expert, after all.”

Hubert should have learned by now that he’d be left stammering and flustered by Lysithea’s reply no matter what he said. Not that he made it particularly hard, still in disbelief there was someone besides Edelgard who found him tolerable, much less attractive. “I... cannot imagine that in itself would impact the flavor, no, but it’s best not to let it cool too much before drinking.”

A curiously straightforward answer, as he removes his own boots and sets them beside hers. Not many were even familiar with what coffee was, and of those, relatively few enjoyed it, and Hubert was actually excited at the chance to explain. It was one of the few things he’d learned for himself, instead of for the sake of Edelgard or some gruesome mission.

He extends his hands, gesturing to Lysithea’s shawl, offering to take it from her shoulders. “May I?” He was an immaculate servant... now that there were no prying eyes or gossiping lips.

“...Oh. Thank you,” Lysithea sighs contentedly, nearly forgotting how deeply he played the role, and so her words are lost for a solid second or two before tilting into Hubert’s hands to retrieve the shawl. Loathe as she’d be to admit it, the offer stirred inside Lysithea the tiniest twinge of jealousy towards Edelgard. Not nearly enough to shake her overwhelming trust and admiration towards Adrestia’s future emperor and fearless leader; nonetheless, it draws a subtle, fleeting pout from her lips. One that’s quick to vanish when she remembers her place in Fódlan’s future remains... questionable, at best. Stay alive now; mourn the lack of revered princess status with a devoted ghostly coffee-fiend bodyguard later.

The white-haired prodigy wanders up behind Hubert, eyes darting between the man and his beans. “...How did you become interested in this, anyway? Is coffee more commonplace in the Empire? No, that can’t be right, the rest of the House is from the Empire too...”

“It is somewhat rare, even in Enbarr. My father drank it sometimes. He despised it, but it’s much more stimulating than tea.” His father was also a detestable stain on the history of a distinguished house that had proudly served the Hresvelg for a millennia, and would die the coward’s death he deserved for what he allowed to happen to Edelgard. But that was hardly conversation to have over coffee. Instead Hubert pours a cascade of beans roasted to a glossy, nearly-black sheen into a grinder, steadily turns the crank. 

Lysithea holds off on thinking aloud for the time being, choosing instead to stand back and study Hubert’s hand movements. Naturally, because... he’s about to use them to grind beans and boil water. No other reason.

“This particular batch is from an island in southern Brigid. It should be relatively sweet, and not so acidic.” He’s so focused on his task he nearly fails to notice Lysithea studying his hands. He waves one over a small glass pitcher, conjuring a flame to submerge into and quickly heat the water within, watching her rose-petal irises follow from the corner of his eye, and he composes a hasty plan to attempt to tease her in turn.

“Hmm... Maybe we could go into town together sometime, so you can show me the different types there are?” Realizing the idea sounds suspiciously like a date, Lysithea hurriedly elaborates. “I- I know there’s that one merchant near the armory outside who sells some on the weekends, but I have a suspicion it’s the same exact batch every time. I’ve never seen anyone buy it from him. Well, no, the professor did once. But that’s it. So we should probably venture further...out...”

“If you could stand to be seen with me, I suppose that would be fine.” Hubert replies idly as he grinds the beans into a fine powder, not even registering the romantic implications until Lysithea attempts to walk them back. He allows her to flail briefly, enjoying not being the one caught flat-footed for once, before throwing her a lifeline. “You are correct. The professor bought them as a gift for me, and they were exceedingly terrible. We would have to visit the town proper.”

Hubert’s hasty plan comes to fruition, then, as he makes a point to let some of the grounds roll over his thumb as he adds them to the steaming water, dark oils quickly seeping into pristine white silk. “Ah. It seems my glove is stained.” His feigned surprise is much more dry and much less believable than Lysithea’s had been, but he could hardly think it would matter. “I suppose I must remove it, then.” He hooks the opposite index into the wristband of his right glove, slowly tugging down the fine cloth. “If that’s alright with you, of course?”

Unprepared for his devious plan, Lysithea can only hopelessly stare at the sight of Hubert manipulating his glove. The man may as well have hooked his thumbs on the edge of his trousers, inched them down to the taper of his hips, and displayed to Lysithea a treasure trail of black hair against his waist. It would have achieved the same effect, more or less.

“I-...” Lysithea suddenly finds her mouth dry. “I’m not going to boss you around your own home, Hubert.”

Whatever joy he’d found in her brief stammering paled in comparison to the way her sentence stopped in its tracks at the scandalous sight of his exposed wrist. “You aren’t?” Hubert pulls the gloves away painstakingly slowly, slowly shifting the precisely tailored silk off of his hands. “Then it’s a good thing this isn’t my home.” He flexes the wiry muscle in his hand, stretches the long fingers in an easy flourish. Entirely unnecessary, of course, but it was satisfying the way Lysithea had to force herself to look away.

It’s an incredibly silly exploit; Lysithea knows this, and it makes the weakness that much more infuriating. It’s just a hand. Granted, it’s a long, gaunt one with nimble, graceful fingers that could easily bring her to completion. A feathery touch that could, at any given moment, cast a fatal hex onto an entire batallion. Haunting, twin reminders to their tryst in the training grounds, to the unearthly feeling of his palms desperately learning her body like a blind man reading Braille scripture. But still... just a hand.

Lysithea silently curses Hubert, tightly squeezing her thighs together. Lowering her face into her own hand, she then shuts her eyes with a furrowed brow; to an outsider, the expression would probably come across as unamused and exasperated. Which, to an extent, isn’t inaccurate — just woefully overshadowed by the heavy pangs of arousal plummeting to her core and the rapid rush of blood rising to her cheeks. “Mnn. N- No, that was a lie. I would definitely still boss you around in your own home. I’ll do it anywhere, in fact, especially when you’re going to be... difficult.”

“You’ve already shown you’re willing to assert yourself, regardless of where we are. A crowded lecture hall, for instance.” Hubert ripostes over his shoulder without looking back as he stirs the coffee, ensures it’s steeped dark enough. “Though I don’t recall me being the one making things difficult. Hard, one could say.” He’s proud of how steady he can keep his voice through the fumbling innuendo, even if it’s only because he doesn’t have to meet those soft pink eyes.

Lysithea flicks her head the opposite direction, ransacking for ideas to ignore the flame smoldering in the pit of her stomach. When she finally finds one, both her demeanor and her mouth make a 180° shift. “...You know what? Yes, as a matter of fact, you should remove that glove. It’s indecent to wear dirty clothes.”

Not at all suspiciously, Lysithea retrieves one of the sweets from the wicker basket. It’s a round pastry dusted with cinnamon and, as it turns out, filled with honey when the short warlock bites into it. “Mm. You’re more than welcome to try some, by the way.”

The sudden shift in her attitude and voice is enough to cause Hubert’s eyebrows to raise in curiosity and, were he being honest, excitement. The diminutive mage had been more right than he’d wanted to admit when she accused him of enjoying her teasings. He delicately folds his gloves together, depositing them on one end of the counter as Lysithea retrieves a pastry, takes a bite.

Smugly, the sweet-toothed sorcerer lowers her eyelids, not so subtly letting a dense drop of honey fall onto her shirt. There’s no masking the cheeky smirk as she mimics Hubert’s dry speech patterns:

“Ah. It seems my shirt is stained. What an awful stroke of luck. Since we’re already in here, though... You don’t mind if I borrow something of yours, do you?”

“I’m not usually one for... sweets...” It’s his turn to trail off, now, his eyeline and his train of thought caught helplessly in the golden honey as it drips from her hand to her slight chest. His cheeks burn again as she mocks him, even if it warms his heart just a bit too. By the time he composes himself enough to reply, she’s already thumbing through his closet and it’s disappointingly utilitarian offerings. “O-of course. Take your pick.”

It was hardly ever a question, considering Lysithea’s made her way to Hubert’s closet long before he found the words. Shuffling through the plentiful supply of identical, collared, long-sleeved button-down shirts, she eventually selects one at random. “This one should do.”

“I’ll give you some privacy.” He says it almost reflexively, as if he’d forgotten how she’d teased him all week, as if he could remember anything in more clear detail than her body in the cool moonlight a month ago. Already committed to his choice, Hubert stirs the brewing coffee, straining to catch even a glimpse of her from the corner of his eye.

He takes up a strange looking instrument, a metallic loop attached to a handle, with a thin cloth stretched over it to act as a filter. He presses it intentionally down through the coffee, sequestering the grounds at the bottom, and pours the steaming coffee into two delicate mugs. “Our drinks are prepared, when you are.”

Hubert offered her a moment of privacy, and she doesn’t argue. Despite all they’ve done, he still dictates himself with more professionalism and servitude in a single finger than Lysithea possessed in her entire body. She decides there’s something charming about that, quickly slipping out of her shirt and —upon witnessing just how long the garment is on her lithe frame— her skirt as well, leaving the arcane prodigy in a wonderfully comfortable pseudo-tunic. “How do I look?”

She flaps the comically excessive fabric dangling from her wrists, swiftly rolling up the sleeves so that her hands can be functional. The drinks are then declared finished, so Lysithea makes her way over to the counter to pick up the piping hot mug.

He needed have bothered maintaining his composure. As soon as Hubert sees Lysithea, his overly long sleeves hanging hanging well past her hands, his heart is in a vice grip. A devastatingly adorable counterattack. He has to bring a curled hand up to his mouth in mock consideration as he takes a breath to steady himself. “It suits you well.”

Before carrying on to the little table, the intrigued mage swerves around to observe the strange apparatus. “Hm. This reminds me of the loose leaf tea infusers Lorenz has. Do you like tea as well, Hubert? Or is it no longer enjoyable, once you’ve made the switch?”

He pulls a chair out for Lysithea as she selects her mug and investigates his coffee pot. “It’s essentially the same, though the coffee is ground more finely, so it requires a finer filter.” He gathers his own mug, as well as a bowl of sugar cubes for Lysithea, before settling across from her. “Tea is fine, if unappealing. It lacks the... intensity of coffee.”

Crisp porcelain clinks against the tea table, meeting the smooth oak at the same time Lysithea meets the chair. As delightful as it would be to dive directly into the infinite, lust-driven possibilities that could be carried out in Hubert’s quarters, there’s a far greater thrill in the... anticipation.

The game, for lack of a better word. That unwritten contest between the magi to see who would fold first, made especially enticing when they both know good and well they would equally relish in the submission. “Oh! I almost forgot. You owe me a performance, do you not?”

Lysithea smirks, knowing full and well the power of the question’s implications from their tryst in the training grounds, lifting the cup to her face without further thought. Unsweetened tea may not appeal to her, but it’s at least bearable. This shouldn’t be too different.

Gods above, she couldn’t have been more wrong.

The younger of the two tightly purses her lips, wrestling the urge to instantly spit out the coffee and stick out her tongue. Any flavorful medleys or distinctive traits to differentiate itself from other brews are entirely lost on Lysithea, who is instantly overwhelmed by the scalding bitterness.

Not that she’s giving up. Despite the undoubtedly repulsed reaction, Lysithea knits her brows together and downs another sip. Perhaps it is one of those acquired tastes, she thinks to herself, genuinely wanting to explore and come to appreciate Hubert’s own recreational interests.

It’s been so long since he’d felt genuine delight that he almost does not recognize it as he watches Lysithea’s face scrunch up in distaste, just as he’d predicted. What he wouldn’t have predicted was the way she’d lift the cup again, force herself to take a second unadulterated sip, like she might care to share something with him. The edges of Hubert’s solemn mouth prick up into the faintest hint of a smile, and he considers the breadth of pleasures to be enjoyed with her beyond the carnal.

Hubert had been keeping his eyes locked on Lysithea, eager to see her reaction to her first sip of coffee, even as he brought his own mug to his lips. It was brewed well, if he said so himself, notes of deep caramel- and burning his throat, as Lysithea poses her question and his breath catches. He manages barely to suppress the reflex to choke, limiting his reaction to a single cough as he feels a sudden, hot excitement pool in the pit of his stomach.

Despite how bitter the brew is, Lysithea snickers and decides she would gladly drink coffee everyday if it meant receiving a choked up reaction out of Hubert every time. 

Hubert carefully sets his cup back on the table, flicks his head to reset his fringe to its intended amount of in his eyes, and clears his throat before bringing his emerald eyes to meet hers. “I can’t seem to recall. Perhaps refresh my memory.” His lie would almost be believable, were it not for the embarrassing display immediately preceding it.

Lysithea snickers, more than willing to lie in turn. “Hmm... I know it was something you insisted wouldn’t be interesting, yet I wanted to see it anyway. What a strange happenstance... it seems I need my own memory refreshed. Give me a few minutes, I’m sure it’ll come to me. Plus, it will give these some time to dissolve.”

Adding a heaping handful of the offered sugar cubes, Lysithea stirs the dense mass of semi-coagulated sugar in her cup. Perfect. Hubert treats himself to another long, slow sip of coffee, lingering on the sweet, lightly burnt flavor as he watches Lysithea completely ruin it with an absurd amount of sweetener. There’s even something endearing about that. Her will certainly wouldn’t be denied, even in something as simple as a hot drink.

Nonchalantly, the tiny magewright stands from her chair and wanders toward Hubert’s bed. In one swift motion, she flips onto it and lies on her side, not at all obscuring the fact that nothing lies beneath Hubert’s shirt besides navy stockings and black panties.

“Keep talking,” Lysithea casually orders, overtly looking into the warlock’s golden-green eyes from across the room. 

“I’m not sure what you would have me speak to.” He attempts to remain composed even as his eyes wander up, past the point where navy stockings cling to pale thighs; but there’s a waver in his voice and a heat in his cheeks that he’s certain betrays him.

When she’s certain she has his attention, she trails her delicate fingertips down her torso, sooner rather than later arriving at the edge of her underwear. “Anything, really. Maybe something you say will jog my memory. What, oh what, was it that I wanted you to do...?”

“I am not one for the limelight, so I... imagine any... performance...” Hubert’s speech and train of thought slow to a crawl as he watches her fingers trace down her torso, like he could feel the blood divert from his head to his lap in real time. “Any performance of mine would be-“

Gasping softly at her own intrusion, Lysithea hooks a pair of fingers within herself, squirming wantonly. “Mn...”

He has to bite his own lip again as Lysithea plunges two digits between hers, writhing and moaning on the bed. His bed. Whatever Lysithea hopes to see would pale in comparison, he’s sure, but he can feel the fabric of his pants straining against his want. Yet another reminder that he is playing with someone far outside his own class in this dangerous little game.

“I may have remembered.” Hubert states simply, finding it saves a little more face than stating outright he’d lost their tête-à-tête this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ❤️ is always appreciated! Questions, comments, concerns? Leave them below 👇👇


	4. Salvation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hubert visits a temple. He's not there to worship Sothis, though.

The hesitation in Hubert’s voice is delightful beyond measure. Lysithea has a difficult time communicating that, unfortunately — she opts instead to taunt him, looking up at her fellow mage with sleepy eyes and a hand that doesn’t bother to pause.

“Mm? You say you remember, and yet... you just sit there. How cruel. Are you a- ah...” Lysithea rolls her face into his pillow, deciding she’ll be damned before she’s willing to remove a hand to muffle herself. Wet and rapid are the sounds emanating below her waist, and the addition of a third finger from her small hand does little to quell Lysithea’s agony. She’s almost embarrassed to lift her head again after that, knowing the white fringe framing her face would be wild and disheveled. Almost. “Are you... afraid?”

Adjusting her position, the arcane prodigy rolls over to lie flat on her back. She pants softly, removing her gaze from Hubert in favor of sliding her panties free from her body. “If you insist on your secrets... then fine. Speak to me what you would do, if you weren’t a coward. Mmn...”

Keening, arching her back, and capitalizing on the freedom from the soft black fabric, her thighs part further away from each other for the aching possibility of achieving a deeper angle. Lysithea’s breaths shallow while her hips buck ever so slightly into her palm.

“Or does tha— aa—!” Her head strikes his pillow, having finally found just the right arc against her clit. She rubs the needy, little button firmly and slowly, shivering, burning, and gasping by her own touch. Only when she catches her breath does she resume her train of thought. “...D- Does that frighten you too? What a shame. I’ll at least be kind enough to share with you what I would do.”

It broke something in Hubert, the way she could taunt him, command him even, while she shook herself apart on his bed. Lysithea’s taunts land, eventually, though it takes time for his ego to catch up to his id; takes time for his dumbstruck tongue to catch up to his ego. “Those are my choices then?” Hubert unbuttons his jacket as he rises from the table, discarding it on the floor as he approaches the edge of the bed. He’s not entirely sure why he bothers to stand, only that he wants to be closer.

“I have always preferred action to speech...” Hubert weighs the cost of asking a favor, as he undoes the buttons of his shirt with slightly shaking hands. Was he really so nervous to do what Lysithea did so brazenly? Perhaps he truly was a coward. “... but please do not stop.”

The look Lysithea rewards Hubert with borders on feral. Equally thrilled at the sight of his jacket falling from his shoulders, and at the slivers of skin beneath his partially unbuttoned shirt, Lysithea gleefully bites her lip and adjusts her position when the immaculate servant draws near: one that redirects her (mostly) unabashed nudity towards his gaze.

Hubert undoes his belt, hooks his thumb under both waistbands. His excitement finally overtakes his embarrassment and he pushes them down, revealing his aching cock, cradling it tentatively in his free hand. He ghosts his fingertips down his length as she moans, a shudder running up his spine.

Both magi, it seems, appreciate when Hubert submits to his body — albeit for different reasons.

The Imperial vassal gazes down at her longingly as he runs his hand lightly over his arousal, still somewhat hesitant. He’d never found any pleasure in the act itself before her, only in the release and the relief. How things change. He tightens his grip a bit despite himself as she throws her head back, her moan spurring another surge of need.

The words pour faster than Ordelia’s scion can filter them, charged and filthy and rendered that much more obscene by her staring him down. “Mm. You still want to know what I would do? I would order you over here to take off those pants and climb on top of me. While you keep your smallclothes on, of course, so I can watch you throb and suffer. I’d command you to kiss me. T- To suck my neck, my breast...”

His cheeks burn hot and his hips buck into his hand, already slick with precum, as she details exactly what she’d have him do, and Hubert aches for it. A low, groaning moan spills out of his broad chest before he steadies his wrist, slows his strokes, not realizing how far he’d pushed himself already.

Her hands sink into the sheets beneath her with a death grip, drawing a shaky breath through gritted teeth. “—And I'd have you fuck me with your fingers until I can’t remember my own name. And, at the exact same time, I'd cast a curtailed Abraxas on your cock until you lose your mind and beg like a common whore, Hubert von Vestra.”

The way the sorceress says his name undoes him, and Hubert's knees buckle under the weight of it. His knees fall to the low edge of the bed, a distinctly unchurchly kneeler as he gives an entirely unsaintly prayer, hungrily surveying her lithe form. Between heavy, hot breaths and shuddering strokes, Hubert locks his eyes with hers, “Is this satisfactory, Lady Ordelia?” His voice is low, even for him, raspy with want despite his ever-stiff speech.

Goddess be damned, he'd actually done it.

Flushed cheeks rank low on Lysithea’s list of concerns as she sinks into the bed’s top blanket, desperately pulling the numerous buttons lining Hubert’s 'borrowed' shirt out of place. By the end of it, the garment is nothing more than a flowy accessory on her small frame, covering absolutely nothing that it was originally intended to.

Rosy eyes widen when she registers the warlock’s dreadfully low question; she almost hadn’t heard it, but she is so, so glad that she does. “Mnn... satisfactory? Satisfactory as in: what I want to see? Yes. But if you mean satisfactory as in: enough? As if I’m finished with you?”

Lysithea curls an index under his chin, craning his head further and denying him the choice to look away.

“Absolutely not.”

She ogles the way his erection drapes over the two fabrics. This is, perhaps, the most obscene act she’s ever physically seen another person do, and it shows. Lysithea groans, grinding her own hips pointedly into her hand as impulsive ideas crossing her mind; the young woman seriously considers snatching Hubert by the hips and manually pushing him to and fro, like nothing more than a life-sized sex toy.

“You are so...” Lysithea hums on the last syllable, “picturesque. Not that you weren’t already... but right now, you... ah... you look like a martyr ready to repent.”

Knowing Hubert holds the Goddess with minimal, if any, reverence, she crosses her legs behind his head and murmurs. Sacrilegious or not, the dark mage genuinely felt some unexplainable sense of possession and role of protection over him; the feeling merely escalates to eleven in the privacy of each other.

Emboldened, the snowy-haired gremory decides to offer him something to believe in. A beacon within this altar that is his bedroom. 

With both hands, she combs through Hubert’s hair, completely pushing back the soft fringe so that she may study both eyes. Fuck, he looks good: from that unsteady hand gripping his achingly hard penis, to the gravelly voice seeking lewd validation. “M- Mmm... Is that the case, Hubert? Have you come to confess your sins? Or do you wish to... ask something of me?”

Hubert can’t help but break into a wry grin, his single dry laugh escaping him at the religious imagery. He’s about as far from a martyr as one could get, but he certainly wouldn’t decline a chance to defile its name like this, particularly not as Lysithea wraps her legs over his broad, angular shoulders. “A little of both, really.” His response is sighed into the soft skin of her thigh, punctuated with a single shaking kiss.

Ignatz, Marianne, and surely most of the academy’s faculty would have a heart attack at even the concept of sullying the church’s perceived sanctimony in such a way. But Lysithea catches Hubert’s lone laugh and counters it with a flurry of giggles, smiling warmly down upon him.

He feels two small hands tangle in in his hair, gladly tilting his head back into her touch. Hubert’s heavy lidded eyes are guided upward, though they linger on Lysithea’s nearly bare form, on the curve of her breast and the arch of her lip, not quite able to meet her own pale magenta gaze.

“I would confess that I have... indulged myself in the memory of our last meeting, repeatedly. It seems I can’t stop.” Another chill runs up his spine as he runs his hand up his cock, as if to punctuate his sentence. “And I only ask for the same thing all martyrs do.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath, sterling his nerves before meeting candy pink irises. “Your benediction, and your... divine guidance.”

Hubert’s lips twist into a shade of a grin as she tilts his chin, forces his eyes from straying. “I am wholly at your disposal. Use me as you would, Lady Ordelia.” He continues to slowly tease himself with light, gliding tugs under her appraising eye, only hoping to meet her expectations. “Please.”

“Hmm...” The soft sound is paired with an even softer action, her thumb gently drifting over Hubert’s cheek. “I see. If you’re to be forgiven for such a... grievous offense, then you won’t be allowed to hide from the eyes of judgment.”

The ‘eyes of judgment’ in question mirror Hubert’s own lust-riddled gaze. How confident his hold has become— a far cry from that of the paralyzed man mere minutes ago, now pumping his length in a noticeably non-nonjoyous manner.

“Bare yourself to me. All of you,” Lysithea muses, playing with a few stray strands of ink-black hair. Hardly befitting of a ‘priestess’, let alone any holy figurehead, but she can’t imagine a few mild inaccuracies getting in the way of their cheeky blasphemy.

In case her implication isn’t crystal clear, Lysithea pushes Hubert’s uniform shirt the rest of the way off of his shoulders. All that remains are the trousers and smallclothes that really only serve as decoration now that Hubert’s hopelessly hard length is on display for the diminutive prodigy. “I... mh... I still can’t believe you would try to deny me such a heavenly sight. No matter what you claim... you look absolutely splendid in the limelight.”

For someone who’d never set foot in a church before his time at Garreg Mach, a deep thrill runs through Hubert as Lysithea speaks down at him so sanctimoniously. Were the goddess anything like this, he might be a devout man, but he seriously doubts a Church of Seiros mass is half as interesting as his fellow dark mage pushing his shirt insistently off his shoulders.

Never do her eyes linger in one place for long. Sensory overload be damned; Lysithea cannot hold back from flickering between his flushed face and his blushing cock, her nimble fingers unable to satisfy the depth and thickness she aches for. Not that it stops her from trying and so brazenly fucking herself in front of the elder student. “H- Ha... How d-dare you...”

Hubert is forced to release his length as he relents, shivering against the sudden absence. Fingers stained the telltale bruised purple of excessive dark magic use tug at pristine white sleeves, and the cloth drops from around his frame, wiry and angular and frequently marred by the burns and jagged scars of one who had found themselves on the receiving end of black magic many times before. “My most sincere apologies. I wouldn’t presume such a wretched mortal form to be worthy of your praise.”

By this point, she realizes far too much willpower is required to refrain herself from swapping out her hand with Hubert’s lips — to force him to lap away the consequences of his actions.

So she stops refraining.

Cradling the back of Hubert’s head, Lysithea bridges the distance between his lips and her own. Firmly, she squishes the blade-like cheekbones between her slim thighs and subtly arches her pussy into him, enveloping all of his vision. “A— hah...”

He’s barely got time to flash a thin, teasing grin before he feels a petite hand on the back of his head, pulling him forward. Angular cheekbones burn bright as he flusters and freezes for a moment before experimentally rolling his tongue against her. In his lifelong aversion to intimacy, Hubert found himself lacking in both theoretical and experiential knowledge to lean on, much to his displeasure at this moment. The taller warlock's movements are fumbling at first, unpracticed and hesitant, but equally analytic, quickly honing in on what made the younger mage call his name most ardently, or roll her hips against his tongue most fervently. A low, self-satisfied hum rolls up from his chest and crashes against her as she grinds down against his mouth, and he meets her eagerly, securing Lysithea's thigh with one hand and teasing the edge of his erection with the other.

Lysithea's greed escalates, and she intends to occupy more than just the dark mage’s mouth. But not before pushing her hips forward a few more times, panting Hubert’s name between fragile sighs. Melting from the sensation, she tries her damndest to not become a squirming, hapless creature flat on her back, determined to keep control of the situation. She's... mildly successful.

“I- If you... want to clear your conscience, then— nn... your confession should be loud and clear. Up. Now.” Lysithea lifts his head up and guides him along her body, reluctantly removing Hubert’s lips from her sex. Higher, she leads him and his shuddering breaths to her mons, her naval, the dip of her waist, and finally her breasts — wherein she places Hubert’s face between them, and kicks off the remainder of his clothes with the heel of her foot.

It’s not until he’s pulled away again and he takes a deep, gasping breath that Hubert realizes he hadn’t been breathing, too focused on hooking his tongue against Lysithea’s clit at just the right angle to keep track of something so trivial. His head spinning just a bit more than it would be already, Hubert presses devout kisses to his confessor’s skin as she tugs his head upward by inky locks, allowing him to pause at her breast long enough to draw one pink, perky nipple between his lips, gently teasing it between his teeth.

With what little strength she can conjure, she hoists Hubert on top of the bed with her. It takes a bit of finesse, but Lysithea eventually manages to find a grip on Hubert’s precum-slick cock, simply rubbing it along the entryway of her equally wet pussy without truly allowing him in.

He slips the rest of the way out of his uniform, with the help of Lysithea’s hooked heel, as he climbs up onto the bed and over her; her lithe frame eclipsed by his. One long, scarred hand curls into a tight fist in the blankets beside snowy white hair as delicate fingers grips his length and a low moan catches in his throat. It was a sublime torment, being so achingly, throbbingly close to her, and it takes every ounce of his self control not to buck his hips as she presses him so tauntingly between her folds.

It’s a difficult sacrifice, but the dark mage is willing to hold off on her personal satisfaction for the opportunity to torture Hubert further. Back and forth, up and down, Lysithea trails his cockhead just enough to envelop his tip in the girl’s dripping heat. “Nn... T- tell me... what good is a servant that needs constant supervision? A glass breaks; you clean it. No words need even be uttered.”

With her free hand, Lysithea cups Hubert’s face, inching him forward and murmuring barely above a whisper: “M-... Make me feel good. Please...”

She punctuates the command by pulling Hubert in, trapping his lips in her own and kissing him with untamed fervor.

Hubert squirms under Lysithea’s touch through the kiss, the hand not anchored in the blankets running up her soft thigh, over the curve of her waist. He sighs desperately into her kiss, sucking on her lip as she pulls him in; his whole body shuddering as their hips finally meet again. It’s better than Hubert had remembered, desperately conjuring the memory in late night solitude.

“Of- of course. Of course. Mmm-my apologies.” Hubert’s lips roll a string of kisses down to her neck, his turn to plant a bed of violet hickies against pale skin as he begins to thrust. He drags his free hand down, settling his palm on her lower stomach and splaying darkened fingertips out, savoring their size difference as he rolls the pad of his thumb over her clit between deep, lingering strokes.

Slowly, so as not to disrupt the young man’s balance, Lysithea curls Hubert’s unoccupied hand inside of her own and reassigns the role of blanket-anchoring to his elbow. Cupping his loosely-balled fist now within her own, Lysithea cradles the hexed bruises against her lips. “I’ll have you know, I rather enjoy your so-called wretched mortal form. Do you mm-... mean to imply that I have bad taste?”

It was disarmingly, incongruously romantic the way Lysithea cradles his fingers, cold and raw and the color of decay. Even had he not been leaning on it, Hubert would have been laid low by her lips pressed tenderly to his knuckles, realizing that it is perhaps the first time in his life he’d been handled so gently. He felt undeserving of it. He was a tool to be used to a singular end, honed to an exceedingly sharp edge and unpleasant- dangerous, even- to the touch, and it was an unnecessary risk to handle such things without reason.

He might have protested, had Lysithea not effortlessly cornered him once again, another needless reminder of how thoroughly he’d been overrun; as if a month of constant distractions hadn’t already routed him. “My most humble apologies. Your refined palate must be beyond my ken. It’s clear you sense some redeeming quality I cannot.”

That’s about all the face he can manage to save, and none of it matters as Lysithea runs her petite up his frame. Their warmth is radiant against his cool skin, and his sharp edge melts away, molten and malleable.

“Just the idea of it...” Lysithea bites her lip through a smile, inhaling sharply through her teeth. “It’s kept me awake far too many nights. You have no clue how often, how badly I’ve wanted to steal you from class and fuck you right outside the doors for all of them to hear. Because you are mine. All of this?”

The white-haired mage drifts her hands along the bruises and scars littering Hubert’s lanky frame, longingly rubbing the most fresh, recent of marks. “Mine. Do well not to forget it.”

Even her claim of ownership can be disputed later, when she isn’t tracing her fingertips over his ropey scars, clearly untended by any trained healer. When he can think of anything besides sinking further into her touch. When his mind is clear enough to cut himself up and compartmentalize the pieces, to rectify how much of himself was owned by whom, exactly. Instead he opts to sigh contentedly against the curve of her neck, “Of course. I don’t know how I could forget, even if I should ever want to.”

Despite her smug speech and the fact that she incited their first thrust, the petite warlock isn’t wholly prepared — and she doubts she ever will be, looking at the sheer contrast between them. She swings her legs behind Hubert’s hips, clinging to him with a vice grip and damned before she lets something as trivial as basic geometry spoil their fun. “O- oh, god... mmn...”

Even in the privacy of her own quarters, with illicit texts and salacious toolsets at her disposal, Lysithea’s solitary attempts were no match for the double penetration bestowed upon her now; feeling Hubert within her not once, but twice melts her away, leaving behind nothing but a Lysithea-shaped puddle.

“Nn— nn...!” The gremory’s quick, deadly tongue suddenly weighs down in her mouth like lead, her pale body flush under Hubert’s towering frame. Hungering so badly for more, she lifts her pelvis up in rough timing with her fellow sorcerer’s, leaving the soft, wet slaps of skin striking skin in her wake. “Not... f- fair, Hubert...”

How shamelessly, hopelessly malleable Lysithea feels beneath him. With each hauntingly slow, deep thrust, she contracts almost painfully tight around him, squeezing until the simple act of pulling out should seem a Herculean feat. Combined with the pad of Hubert’s thumb kneading her firm, attention-starved clit, and the beautiful warmth of his hickeys spreading along the column of her throat, she growls Hubert’s name and carves her nails into his shoulders. It wouldn’t be long before her scratches rake down his back, if the way she wildly bucks into him is any indication. “Ah— ah, h- harder... I can... I can take it!”

Watching the way Lysithea fell apart under him was a pleasure nearly as keen as the way she constricted around him with each stroke; the stilling of her tongue and quaking in her legs each time he presses their hips together nearly as delectable as the thin skin of her throat, blooming in streaks of indigo as he sucked and bit at it. Hearing the low, hungry way his name rolled out of her and the desperate roll of her hips may have spurred him on even if her demand hadn’t.

“A-aah... As you w-wish.” Hubert’s breath is hot and low against her ear as she clings to him, as he forces himself not to break. His hand reluctantly relinquishes it’s place toying with her clit to move to her hip, long fingers and broad palm wrapping around lithe curves to hold her steady.

He shifts his knees to find better purchase in the mattress and against her as desperately as he had ached to since she first tossed herself on his bed. His fingers curl into her skin and he pours a deep groan into her shoulder, doing nothing to quench the unbearable heat pooling in his stomach. But he would not break first, ever an immaculate servant.

Dwarfed underneath the imperial vassal, Lysithea feels a bit like a pillow: soft, pale, easily toted around under one’s arm. The sensation only amplifies when Hubert moans so sweetly into her neck, relinquishing ownership of himself and occupying, quite literally, all five of her senses.

Lysithea hums contentedly at his tenderness, but that fluttery sound delves into something far more raw, needy, and socially unacceptable when his pelvis collides with hers. It’s her turn to bunch up Hubert’s covers inside her fists, nearly bending backwards in her attempt to feel as much of him as she possibly can. Lysithea’s breasts bounce and cave in to Hubert’s momentum, brushing his chest in turn each time he comes down; Lysithea’s thoroughly painted neck continues to beg for attention, tilting toward Hubert’s cool lips whenever possible; even mentally, she demands closer proximity, leading her to roll her own hips into Hubert’s with intricate, unpredictable patterns — though, if one were to squint, it might look like the young warlock is attempting to spell her name out on his cock

In preparation for his fated duty as the Emperor’s hand, a traditional Vestra upbringing had steeled Hubert against many of the ways one could break another's will. He was no stranger to hunger, or cold, or to being deprived of sleep. He’d purchased a resistance to poison in two dozen nights crumpled in just-less-than-lethal agony, had proven his tongue would hold fast through excruciating pain, by magic or steel. Yet nobody had spared a word for pleasure.

How long had he controlled himself, denied himself even the most basic of pleasures? How quickly had he fallen to this, wrapped tightly around Lysithea’s diminutive finger, begging to be tugged? It didn’t matter, couldn’t possibly matter, as the prodigy arches her back and presses her chest against his, her low, needy groan vibrating under his skin. All Hubert could do, all he wanted to do, was remain close to her, to throw his hips forward as she threw her head back; to inspect the deep purple flourishing against delicate white skin. He usually left less evidence..

“Mm- mmh...!” Throwing her head back, Lysithea can feel her thoughts trying to escape with her whines and sighs — but this is one quip she wants to deliver. Riding out a few thrusts more, she eventually finds her tenacity, looking up at him with blissful, fiery eyes: “Nn... that’s an impressive resolve you have, Hubert. It would be a shame for it to break.”

But he could endure. The test does not matter, he is a Vestra, and Vestras do not break, that he is sure of. Until Lysithea speaks again. Until her eyes flutter open, heavy with pleasure and sharp with an idea he was sure was at his expense. “It wouldnnnmmm-“ His voice trails into a low, muffled moan as Lysithea tightens around him, a deep, pleasurable shudder running up his spine, “It would be. I would h-hate to disappoint.”

Her palms come crashing down quick and hard on his ass, the loud smack reverberating around the bedroom. Like some kind of hunter’s trap, her nails sink and claw into the deathly pale skin to create a wild, animalistic pace with her guidance. Back and forth, in and out, she maneuvers Hubert’s body like a scalding hot machine, building onto the purchase he’d recently discovered once his knees met the mattress. “Fff- f- fuck... me...”

As clear as it had been she was planning something, Hubert hadn’t expected delicate hands to crash against his ass, and he might’ve jumped if her nails hadn’t clawed into him, holding him steady. However many steps back from the edge his shock may have pulled him, Lysithea roughly manipulating his hips undid nearly instantly, and Hubert knew, could feel, the pace was untenable.

A cunning plan.

Maddeningly close. Lysithea is staring at the brink, ready for Hubert to give the final push. And yet... a cruel, depraved facet of the young sorcerer longed to turn around, throw Hubert off of that cliff side first, and jump after him to witness the newly shattered pride in those serpentine, golden-green eyes. Her smirk is playful and devilish, fox-like in every sense of the word. “Mmn... Y- you know better than to let simple words get the best of you? Right, Hubert? A- ah... even if those words are ‘Cum for me’... and ‘Scream my name, you stupid fucktoy’... I’m sure you have the self-discipline not to break...”

Lysithea ceases to silence herself in any capacity. She almost wishes she was perched on top of him, or pressed flush to his chest with her back — something, anything that would allow her to glance down and be hypnotized by Hubert’s cock so gorgeously throbbing and thrusting in and out of her tiny frame. Though... this view is perfectly good in its own right. Hubert fades in and out of her vision with each rapid, desperate throw of his hips. How —if he wasn’t securing her hip to the bed— she would surely slip out from underneath him and hit the headboard from the sheer force and unbridled power. Goddess above, Lysithea feels far more ‘glass’ than ‘cannon’ right now.

Hubert’s powerful jaw, sculpted shoulders, and broad chest mesmerize the girl. These are the features of the Emperor’s closest and deadliest weapon. The immovable, unshakable statue whose life is not his own, but an extension of his liege. Little more than a month ago, Lysithea would have taken these aposematic signals as the threats they were intended to be. And yet... hiding in plain sight are unguarded, expressive eyes of chartreuse green; defenseless quivers of an apologetic lip; and raw, helpless moans erupting from deep within his chest — all so painfully human.

She was too tight, too hot, too slick, too insistent; and even as Hubert takes deep, heaving breaths to steady himself and temper the heat pooling in his stomach, he knows it’s pointless. “O-of course not, La-aahhh… Lady Ordelia.” A damnable lie, of course, his core wound tighter than a garrote around a double agent’s neck and far more liable to snap. “Punishment would be severe, I imaginnmmmn…” Hubert trails off into another needy moan, unable to recompose himself this time.

“Y- yeah? ... A severe punishmmmmm...” Already, the possible ‘punishments’ flood her mind: she muses with the idea of passing by the elder student’s desk, slamming down a tome with its especially intriguing incantations dogtagged — magical, intricate ropes that she may use to bind him; spectral, manipulable tentacles that she may command he use on her; and delicate, powerful invisibility shields that they may cloak themselves in and defile one another in otherwise unbelievably public locations. Only to leave the consequence at the ‘punished’ boy’s discretion, like a child commanded to go outside and choose which tree branch to be spanked with.

Despite his closing wavering verbal jab, Hubert had no capacity left to imagine. He has no capacity to do anything, any longer, except wildly drive his hips into hers and cling to his final, frayed lifeline as he lowered into that yawning abyss. His toes curl into the sheets, his fingertips into her hand and her hips, his mouth cranes back down to the sweet, bruised skin at the curve of her shoulder; his whole body collapsing under the weight of a duty unfulfilled.

He wants to apologize, to beg forgiveness, but all he can muster is a soft “Please…”, hot against her neck and heavy with wounded pride as his foundations wash away from beneath him, like sand in the outgoing tide.

“Hubert—“ Insistent hands scrape at the dark mage’s skin, clinging to his large hand, his shoulder blade, to whatever he possibly has to offer. Blinding, burning white floods both her vision and her tight, unrelenting sex; it’s only seconds later when she, too, unravels. The realization that she’s so carefully secured by the same hands that have taken countless lives without a shred of mercy is awfully, frighteningly, maddeningly hot. Lysithea writhes in place, face twisted in delight.“I can feel... everything...”

So much for the ‘immaculate servant’. Such is the smug, diminutive jest she very nearly whispers in his ear, but a weak, pleading sound that vaguely resembled Hubert’s voice interrupts her before she gets the chance.

“H- Hey...” the small gremory slowly catches her breath and combs nimble, curious fingers through his hair as if she were soothing a dog in a thunderstorm. “Are you okay? I didn’t— I don’t actually think you’re a stupid fucktoy. Most of the time, anyway.”

Wiggling beneath him to adjust their hold, Lysithea rests Hubert’s cheek on her breast. The mutual intersection of their hips, however? Untouched. The short warlock would stay connected, even if —as previously demonstrated— Hubert’s foundations would find no refuge inside of her, making a generous mess all around them.

Hubert's feelings hit in waves, exultant peaks of pleasure immediately giving way, letting him drop like a hangman to his nadir; the venom in his blood turning inward before the next wave hits, crests, falls again. Hubert had failed, and failure was unacceptable.

Even as his head swims and stars shimmer behind his eyes, even as Lysithea writhes underneath him and claws at his back, all Hubert can feel is the heavy guilt where the pit of his stomach should be. A clearer head might have told him it was inconsequential, part of the smaller warlocks grander schemes, but Hubert’s head was rarely clear around her, and less so now than ever.

So he catches his breath without lifting his head, unable to force himself back into her vision, unable to think of a next move. Cornered, defeated, and pitiful, all the things he should not be, could not be, while others were relying on him. So he waits. Braces for the disgust, the disappointment, the anger, whatever Lysithea might unleash on him and worse.

And it does not come. Instead he feels slight fingers slip through his hair, earning a soft shiver down his spine. Hubert allows himself to be moved, his limbs stiff but able to be manipulated, not unlike when he was under the effect of a certain gremory’s gravity spell; allows his too long, too sharp limbs to be rearranged into something more pleasant to hold.

“You did so good. So, so good,” she whispers. Perhaps the action is... unwarranted. Trespassing an unspoken territory. But she ghosts the top of his head with barely-there kisses that hit just as softly as her words.

Even had they not found him at his lowest, Lysithea’s gentle reassurances would have given him pause. Hubert had been many things. Acceptable, satisfactory, occasionally even exemplary. But his praises had always been sung in the stiff, formal ways one gives and receives a combat report or operational intelligence. He had never done good. Never been held closely, never had a soft kiss pressed to his head.

Hubert raises a single fingertip to the corner of his eye, finds the stinging distraction there to be a single, heavy tear. Interesting. Finally recomposing himself enough to speak, Hubert’s voice is low, quiet. He is in uncharted waters, and there’s no knowing what lies beneath them.

“It is… a relief, to hear you say that.” Even that strains him to say, his voice wavering under the terrible weight of a human emotion. “I realize I am a failure, in no position to ask favors, but… could we perhaps stay like this for a moment?”

Such depravity, such gluttony, could hardly be surprising from a starving man, Hubert reasons and reassured himself. Perhaps a failure could be overlooked. Perhaps she wouldn’t mind his long limbs tangled between hers, his sharp cheek pressed to her soft, slight chest, the comfortable warmth shared between them despite the mess surely painting their thighs and his blankets. “If you would keep such a lackluster servant, that is.”

“A relief?” The white-haired warlock muses, content to hold Hubert like this for a lifetime. Feeling his slight shudder reverberate through her own delicate body, Lysithea introduces a very, very muted fire spell to the tips of her fingers. Little more than a softly heated glow that she trails down the dark mage’s spine in a misguided attempt to warm him up. “Mm... I’m surprised you expected anything different. You always do good. I’d almost go as far as to call you a ‘good boy’ if I hadn’t seen the horrors you commit with your hands on the battlefield.”

Her words were a comfort, as was the soft shimmer of low grade flame magic dissipating against his ambient mana. The slight warmth that bled through was hardly more than her fingers would have left alone, but the fact she would care enough to bother stoked a different, far less familiar warmth in his chest.

Hubert wheezes out a quiet laugh as his arms are wrapped around Lysithea’s neck, grateful their length allowed him to keep his head where it was. It was a pleasant change, the latest in a series of firsts, to listen to a heartbeat without waiting for it to cease. It was also nice to rest his head on her breast, were he being honest, despising that he has finally been forced into agreement with Sylvain on any topic. “I do not think I qualify as a “good boy”, even by your generous metrics.” 

Hubert flexes his blackened, bruised fingers when Lysithea presses her lips to the back of his hand, still feeling less than deserving of the softness in the gesture as he carefully avoids accepting the compliment. “Remember that those are only the horrors I have allowed you to see. Those are among the more honorable acts these hands have committed.” His voice is a low, affectionate rumble, wildly inappropriate for bragging about extrajudicial killing, but Hubert has to assume that’s some of his appeal.

The girl nearly chokes from the unbelievable juxtaposition between Hubert’s affectionate murmurs and the actual content of his words — wildly inappropriate indeed. It’s akin to a pet cat offering a half-dead raven as a gift. The sentiment is there, yes, and the actual feat is rather impressive considering the sheer size of the bird. But...

Lysithea finds herself caught off-guard nonetheless, biting her lip to suppress an equally inappropriate giggle. “Mm. It’s no secret that you’ve been pushed to commit... morally ambiguous acts for the Empire’s sake. What those deeds extend to, specifically? I don’t know. Probably prohibited from knowing, even, since I’m not from Enbarr like the rest of you. But I would like to believe that you’re just doing what’s necessary to protect what’s important to you.”

Abandoning even an iota of hesitation, Lysithea kisses his black and blue battered knuckles. “Sounds an awful lot like a ‘good boy’ to me.”

Perhaps a bit tongue in cheek, Lysithea maneuvers Hubert’s lanky arms around her neck and shoulders into something vaguely resembling a loose hug. With those very same atrocity-committing extremities in reach, the prodigious mage tilts her head to the side and nonchalantly kisses the back of his hand.

“Hm... We can stay like this as long as you want,” Lysithea hums, now stroking the back of the battlemage’s head. “Only because there’s no way for us to secretly slip away for a bath together at this time of day. Though, that does give me an idea... I don’t suppose you’d be willing to join me for something like that? Midnight, tonight, at that clearwater spring east of the Monastery? Just near the Airmid River.”

Traces of excitement weave into her words; despite the proximity of her childhood home near the bridge of Myrddin and all the water that flowed through it, swimming was never in the cards. Recreation of any type, really, was never in the cards. Not since the experimentation and tragedy that befell the House of Ordelia.

Even now, Lysithea knows her time is better spent refining her skills so that she may one day protect her parents and, should fortune smile upon her, avenge herself and her fallen siblings. Not skinnydipping in the witching hour with someone who isn’t quite abiding by the “half your age plus seven” rule. For better or worse, however, Hubert has shone a light on a facet of her that longs to experience what more life has to offer. What interesting, unexpected surprises wait beyond the narrow scope of combat and academia? She tries to suppress the smile in her voice, the buzz of a quiet and quickly thrumming heart. “N- Not that you have to. You’re busy, I’m sure, but I invite you to at least consider it. Oh, and for the record—“

The even rhythm of slender fingers stroking through his hair lull Hubert into a calm faster than he would have guessed or liked; his body still having little tolerance for the side effects of affection. He shouldn’t allow it, the way his eyes flutter shut, the way his world narrows to Lysithea’s voice and the soft beat of her heart. It was wrong- his time is not his to give, it is Edelgard’s to leverage… but she had always (and quite hypocritically) insisted he should find time to enjoy himself.

And little brought him joy the way the excitement creeping into Lysithea’s voice at the prospect of an illicit getaway did, the way her heart raced as she gave him an easy out. A reminder she was as unfortunately human as him, as deeply flawed and scared as-

Playfully, and with no more force than necessary to sting for a few seconds, Lysithea strikes his asscheek with her soft, unassuming palm. “—I hate it when you call yourself a failure. Not when you’re being sincere about it, at least. What if instead we called you... Oh! What is it that Dorothea calls you? Hubie?”

Snickering, Lysithea drapes a leg over and between Hubert’s own like a surprisingly comfortable pretzel. Sparing the man from too much embarrassment, the arcane prodigy finishes by shaking her head, sighing contentedly. “That was a joke. I could never. But I will find something better to refer to you with. Something far more accurate than ‘failure’.”

Not at all prepared for her to slap his ass, Hubert can’t help but laugh. A real, genuine laugh, setting his shoulders shaking; the like the parts within him necessary to make the dry, scraping noise were rusted from disuse.

Lysithea's heart swells from the offbeat melody of his laughter, and she feels so warm. Dry and cracked as it may be, so too are campfires, and their presence is no less welcome in spite of it.

“It is also a relief you have the taste and good sense to know what an abysmal nickname that is. If you can promise to find something more satisfactory, I can promise to be… less melodramatic in my failings.” He speaks without opening his eyes, only shifting his leg slightly to allow Lysithea’s to drape between them more comfortably.

“As for your midnight field trip…” It’s Hubert’s turn to tamp down anxiety now, recalling what, exactly, he had originally planned for this evening. A scroll sealed away almost as thoroughly as his trophy from their first night together sits in a desk drawer, intended for the reprehensible claw of Those Who Slither In The Dark; a trade of intelligence gathered. It was a truly detestable thing, how they held Edelgard’s lead, how his empress is forced to ally herself with those who had done her the most harm. But they would play their part until they were given a leash long enough to strangle their would-be masters. Hubert’s newest entanglement, and her obvious history with the Agarthans, only steeled his resolve- though it wouldn’t do to have Lysithea discover their pact of convenience now. It would be… difficult to explain.

“I have other matters to attend this evening. If you would meet me at the spring, and allow me some leniency with the timing, I would gladly take a swim with you.” Truthfully, Hubert had never swam for fun. He knew how, of course, the necessity of the mechanical skill not lost on him; and he had even made approaches by water for the sake of stealth in an operation or two. But learning to endure waterboarding did take some of the fun out of the prospect, and he hadn’t willingly engaged since.

“I’ll wait as long as it takes!” Lysithea confesses, albeit a bit too enthusiastically for her own liking. Doubly so when she remembers how much she despised waiting — the very concept is an insult to her life’s woefully stretched rations of time. Here, however, she honestly means it.

Nonetheless, Lysithea blinks and backtracks, too late for the meek pink dusting her cheeks. “I- I mean, it wouldn’t be fair for you to wind up late to your... meeting or deadline or whatever your obligation is. Nor would it be fair for me to have our ‘field trip’ cut short. Besides, I can wait it out with coffee — it’ll give me a chance to see if it’s earned the praises you sing.”

Not that she would need the boost. Walking along pond rocks illuminated by a fully risen moon, alive with the cascades of short waterfalls, counting down the minutes until a secret paramour arrived — pure adrenaline could fuel the short mage until sunrise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ❤️ is always appreciated! Questions, comments, concerns? Leave them below 👇👇


	5. Fragmentation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is Chapter 5. We don't talk about Chapter 5. (Lysithea learns a dark truth about Hubert's alliances and reacts accordingly.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No smut in this chapter. As a matter of fact, it gets pretty damn grim. CW: violence, gore, near-death. Skip to next chapter to resume your regularly scheduled goth size-difference femdom erotica.

Things had gone about as well as they could, when one was acting as a double agent arranging a conflict between two of the continent’s most powerful and secretive organizations. The Agarthan attaché had been exactly where they had agreed, when they had agreed, far too comfortable in the short leash around his Emperor’s neck to suspect Hubert of any foul play despite his house’s history. And Hubert, of course, had said nothing during the exchange, neglecting to mention how two minor bandit encampments had been bribed into open warfare, or how the Knights of Seiros had begun patrolling the area far more frequently as a result.

He’d said nothing as he doubled back and shadowed Those Who Slither, said nothing as he watched the battle unfold, annihilating both sides. Said nothing as he walked coolly across the blood soaked dirt, kicking a fallen knight’s lance up into his hand and driving it down through the heart of the final survivor, a writhing Agarthan. His tongue bled from biting it back, keeping himself from hissing about the revenge they would have, how his venom only grew stronger as they waited. Instead he controls himself, twists the lance to ensure there are no final surprises, and carefully retrieves his intel.

It’s late by the time Hubert arrives at the spring, late by nearly an hour, guilt biting at his conscience as he hastily disarms the spring-trigger dagger holsters in his sleeves and carefully siphons magical energy out of his emergency spellstones. But it’s spying Lysithea, curled up against a tree in slumber, snow white hair radiant in the moonlight that leaves Hubert dumbstruck; too beside himself to even step silently, the most simple trick expected of Vestra children.

The soft, approaching crunch of foliage proved just loud enough to rise above the wind, crickets, and soothing ambient noise of running water. Lysithea is gently stirred awake, but upon recalling their arrangement, her veins feel like bottled lightning on the verge of bursting open. 

She must contain herself. The scion of Ordelia is mature, level-headed, and grounded. Certainly not childish. Lysithea need not jump into Hubert’s arms, be swung around, all before blasting the taller dark mage into the river with a devilish smirk. This is doable.

Though the girl knows not what time it is, the full moon beaming overhead suggests that the sun is a long ways off. “I’m really...-“

Lysithea catches a yawn in her palm, capitalizing on the few extra seconds to remove her white boots with the back of her heel. “...glad to see you could make it.”

“I would not have missed it.” Hubert’s voice settles into a tone normally reserved for Lady Edelgard, soft and surprisingly earnest as he steps out of the shade; a few droplets of blood spray still glinting on his high cheekbone, missed in his haste to disarm the more lethal parts of his outfit.

Cheeky as per usual when she finds herself isolated with one of Garreg Mach’s most intimidating forces, Lysithea closes some of their distance, brushing the edge of her fingertips down the front of Hubert’s lap. Not unlike their first night together. “Would you like any help getting these off?"

Electricity shoots up his spine as Lysithea ghosts her fingertips across his pelvis, his knees embarrassingly weak from such a simple action.

“I- I am not opposed,” Hubert begins, catching her slender hand in one of his, the other reaching into his pocket. He retrieves a slim, fragile looking vial full of a foul looking green liquid from a holster concealed within, designed to be broken easily and soak the palms of his gloves for underhanded close-range fighting. “But given my current… preparations, it may be more prudent for me to undress myself.”

The closer Lysithea treads, the sharper the contrast of lights and shadows becomes. Glints of fresh crimson, pointed metal, and delicate glass catch her eye, giving the petite prodigy pause as night wind and river mist graze the edge of her skin. “...Forgive me for breaching your privacy, but I suspect you would investigate me too if I showed up with even half of what you’re carrying.”

He starts by hastily undoing the buttons of his jacket, meticulously scuffed to diffuse light rather than catch it; shrugging the black cloth from his shoulders and carefully folding it around the twin missives secreted in an internal pocket. The bandolier of daggers and spell reagents pulled taut across his chest is unbuckled and is discarded atop the jacket; and it’s only when Hubert looks up from disarming the poisoned needles concealed within the belt buckle he’s undoing that he realizes Lysithea is staring.

A soft, mechanical clicking confirms the needles are disengaged, and they retract into the buckle as Hubert looks up, verdant eyes catching on candy-pink. There’s more than just morbid curiosity in those eyes, though, and the hairs on the back of Hubert’s neck prickle. “No need to apologize. It’s my own fault for bringing my business clothes to a personal meeting.”

The magewright’s voice is as soft as it was when Hubert first greeted her here, though caution now weaves through it.

“You’re like a nesting doll, but with layers of daggers and poisons instead of...” Lysithea can’t finish her thought, cradling the side of her suddenly light head. Taking a step back, the small sorceress tries to think, to connect the dots of blood sprayed on Hubert’s cheek into something that makes sense.

“I... Listen, I am no stranger to schemes. Poisons, questionable tactics, and the like. Claude was my old House leader. Those ideas aren’t... new. But there were reasons. A reconnaissance, an ambush, a means to level the playing field when the odds are clearly stacked against him. This... You... I don’t think this is any of those things.”

There’s an edge to Lysithea’s voice, and a lump forming in Hubert’s throat as he hears it. Of course he should have expected it. Most people, any rational person, would react the same way upon seeing his true nature; but she’d always been so flippant about his reputation in the past. How foolish of him to expect otherwise. How foolish of him to want otherwise.

“If it offers me any absolution, I am also using these tools to level an uneven field.” Hubert pulls the belt away, busying his hands winding it around itself as he steels his nerve. “But you’re right. I would use them even were I not. There is no power I wouldn’t leverage to benefit Lady Edelgard, and I have made no secret of that.”

In spite of the circumstances, Lysithea swears to herself that she will not overreact. She will not make any rash decisions. She will not compromise the rapport they’ve built together on the off-chance that this is a misunderstanding.

“Whose blood is that, Hubert?” The magewright winces, wanting so badly to maintain her trust of him, but knowing too well the rumors surrounding Hubert’s tendency to... eliminate those he deems a threat. Lysithea slowly lifts her arms into a defensive arcane stance, hyperfocused on her peripheral vision for any potential adversaries lurking in the darkness.

Despite his convictions, there’s a waver in Hubert’s voice. Knowing Lysithea would grow disgusted and leave had seemed inevitable, that anxiety coiling slowly, tightly around his heart; but her final question sends icy fangs digging in, his blood running even colder than usual as he brings a stunned hand up to his cheek. Shit… shit shit shit.

There’s a world of difference between giggly hypothetical pillow talk and witnessing the unadulterated evidence that the person in front of you has murdered somebody in the last hour. Lysithea takes slow, deep breaths, but this only seems to amplify the sensation of her heart pounding against her ribcage— in the same way that echoes carry farther in an empty room.

Hubert opens his mouth to speak, finds no words come to him, snaps it shut. His thoughts somehow race and get nowhere at all as he struggles to formulate some answer. He wants, he needs to explain this, now, while there’s still a semblance of calm… but it’s simply not his information to give. He could lie, fabricate some traitorous noble or Faerghan assassin, but Lysithea deserved better than lies, especially after placing her trust in Edelgard enough to swap houses. She deserved better than him, probably.

“I… I cannot tell you. I am sorry, I truly am. But I have my orders.” There’s a desperation in his eyes as he looks down on the younger warlock, and he tilts his head down and clasps his hands behind his back apologetically. 

“Having those tools is one thing. I don’t— I don’t fault you for arming yourself. Your task is to defend the Empire and be prepared for anything. I know that. You’re the leader’s confidant. I knew that before we started... all of this. That much is okay.”

Lysithea swallows hard. She can’t comprehend what circumstances could warrant this. She can’t grasp what, during Fódlan’s peacetime, could possibly justify these actions.“What I don’t know... is what prompted you to take an offensive stance tonight. Using those tools is another matter entirely. What have you done, Hubert?”

“There are… complex plans in motion.” Hubert may as well be hacking up barbed wire for how hard it is to choke the words out, even that little information is technically treason enough that he should kill himself where he stood.

The hesitation in her fellow warlock’s voice does little to comfort her, fear continuing to trickle from her lips.

“I’m not going to force you to tell me,” Lysithea trembles, taking another step back — both to keep a safe distance as well as better assess her surroundings for danger. “But if you don’t, my hand will be forced. I will have to assume the worst and suspect that you only agreed to join me here for sinister reasons.”

For once in his life, Hubert doesn’t savor the fear in another’s eyes. For once in his life, he shakes with desperation and frustration instead of rage or fear. For once in his life, he chafes against his promise to Edelgard, an ephemeral leash around his neck and a swollen lump in his throat, choking him to silence.

Lysithea tries to meet his eyes, but by god, is it painful. “How do I know those complex plans don’t include killing me off? How can I trust that you’re not just removing those trinkets for show? Are you going to incinerate me? Drown me?”

“I...” Hubert speaks with an uncharacteristic hesitance, carefully considering the weight of his words, carefully measuring how much rope he is hanging himself with. “I know why you must assume the worst.”

He knows it’s not enough, knows it can’t be enough, to answer her question. He knows because the answers that could suffice scream through his brain and burn on his tongue as he bites them back. Because you’ve suffered enough! Because you’re just like her! Because I will exterminate every one of the slithering monstrosities that did this to you, to her, to us, to Fódlan! I will see them driven from their homes and from this world, I will see them pay their impossible penance, and you will be there with me!

Instead, broad shoulders droop with a defeated sigh, gloved hands unclasp from behind his back. “You are not my enemy, and I will not lie to you. I know I have no right to ask for your trust, but those are truths, and I just… have to ask you to believe them.”

Of course it’s not enough. Mana thrums through the air as it gathers around her hands- soft, delicate hands, that had run soothingly through his hair not a day ago-, the same impressive, nearly excessive density of magic that always responded when Lysithea called for it. “I cannot die here, though. I will not kill you, but I cannot die here.”

The dark hum of mana swirls around Lysithea's slender hands, crackling at her fingertips. Dark Spikes Tau. She purses her lips, not at all wanting a violent turn, but absolutely needing to be prepared in the face of the unknown.

His arms move like lead as he takes up a defensive combat stance, decidedly different from his usual commandeering, ramrod straight posture on the battlefield. It’s a Vestra original, the way he spreads his feet in a wide, low stance and leans away, ready to dodge or roll or strike forward at a gap in an enemy’s focus. One hand extends outward, empty of the parrying dagger the form usually employs, instead held with fingers splayed, palm outturned. I bear no weapon, he begs for it to say, but that would be a lie. He just won’t draw one.

The other hand, held close to his chest, begins to weave a counterspell, the magical energy a pitiful shade of what Lysithea has prepared. Abjurative magic falls quite obviously within the confines of white magic, and subsequently, Hubert was terrible at it. No Vestra worth living would allow themselves to be discovered before striking. He was an envenomed dagger, not a shield. “Please. Please don’t do this.” Hubert’s voice is low, barely above a whisper, wavering with a desperation he’s not sure he’s ever felt outside their times together.

“Really? You truly believe you know why I have to assume the worst?”

Perhaps Hubert’s statement was meant to be a one-off. An answer whose purpose is to pacify and diffuse the quickly escalating situation. However, Lysithea not only runs, but sprints towards a conclusion, haphazardly scouring her brain in the way someone might desperately tear apart a bedroom in search of a lost valuable.

It’s when Lysithea glances at the moon, in the same phase as it was during their initial encounter in the training grounds, that her eyes change. Lively, inquisitive irises, the color of azaleas, suddenly wilt and wither into nearly nothing, leaving behind far too much white.

After their first encounter, Hubert had pulled strings, spirited away classified documents, and utilized what leverage he had with those… things, and learned the truth of what happened to House Ordelia. It was as he had thought and so, so much worse, as was everything with the Agarthans meddled in. He did know why Lysithea had to assume the worst. He was almost flattered she had held her judgement this long.

Hubert can see it in her eyes, in her stance, can feel it in the thrum of mana in the air before Lysithea even speaks. She’s figured it out. He wants to wince, to close his eyes or bow in contrition or something, anything, but he cannot die here. He’s not done yet, and there’s honestly a good chance the diminutive prodigy could overpower him even at his best, given a level field.

“That first night, when we...” Lysithea furrows her brows, delicate hands violently shaking. The intimate memory now gleams in a drastically different light. “You said we ‘may have a common enemy.’ That isn’t common knowledge. At all. Is this... related to that? Is that ‘common enemy’ here, skulking near Garreg Mach? Because they’re not the type to wander aimlessly for a fight. They are opportunistic, precise, and self-serving. They would need a very good reason to allow themselves into the open.”

Lysithea swears she could carve into the tension like cake, dark energies coiling expectantly around her hand like a finger on a trigger.

“This is bigger than you, isn’t it? They’re here for a reason, and you have something to do with it.”

Keep your promise to yourself. Do not act out of turn. Listen to what he has to say. Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay...

“Tell me I’m wrong.” Lysithea stares at the ground, voice choked up with anguish and a genuine desire, for once in her life, to be completely off the mark. “Tell me it’s anything but that, and we can let this go. Who really cares if you’re eliminating wicked nobles or assassins who mean Edelgard harm? That — That’s your responsibility. I will support that. I will support you. I’ll need some time to process this first, and rethink my stance on some things. But when that time comes, I will step in and assist you, even, in whatever way that I can.”

Breathe. Stay calm. Lysithea looks up at Hubert again, daring to inch closer to him and meet his verdant stare.

“But if those were the generic threats you were faced with, it doesn’t... it doesn’t make sense for you to be so silent, does it? You have your orders, but if I’m supposed to be serving Adrestia, is it really fair for me to be kept in the dark about what’s happening?”

The sorceress exhales, feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders only amplify. “I will ask you one more time: Am. I. Wrong? Is the ‘common enemy’ here, and are you the reason for that?”

“I-“ His voice cracks and the spell he’s weaving wavers as she steps forward, and Hubert inches back an equal distance, “I want so badly to tell you the full truth.” He eases his stance, drops the counterspell entirely. One must give trust to receive it, he’s pretty sure he heard someone say once. One must give trust to receive a knife between the ribs, his father would quip in return.

“And I want nothing more than to say you were wrong.” He takes a deep, shaking breath, braces his magical resistances as best he can without weaving an actual spell, and steels his nerve. “But, you are right as ever. They… Our common enemy was here, and I am to blame.” The next moment folds in on itself and stretches off into infinity, a hyper-dense point that feels inescapable as his breath refuses to vacate his chest, as he waits to feel the crash of dark magic tear him apart.

Lysithea stays deathly still for a moment, shutting her eyes as if to ruminate on what he’s said. But there was no misinterpreting his words.

Stay calm.

“I trusted you.”

Stay calm. Lysithea extends her arms, open-palmed with splayed fingers, though for reasons very different from Hubert’s similar stance. Whereas the purpose of Hubert’s is to communicate he’s physically unarmed, willing to relent, Lysithea’s is to maximize the surface area of her magic casts and allow for greater range.

Stay... “They cut us open, Hubert. Like vermin to be checked for rabies. And Edelgard and I were the lucky ones to endure without losing our lives or our sanity.”

She trusted him.

So had Edelgard.

They were children, he had no more say in the matters of the court than the chambermaid did. But he had failed. He should have been there, been there to kick and fight and bite and scream as they took her away to Faerghus. He should have found her sooner, not months after her return to Adrestia, chained in some dank basement in a far flung corner of the Empire. He should have slit his father’s throat on the spot, let his decrepit blood flow over the cobblestones in her stead.

Immune to negotiation now, Lysithea trudges forward with an unfamiliar, unhinged determination plastered on her face. “And you... You welcome their return? You do their bidding? Unbelievable. I don’t care how vital they are to these ‘complex plans’— you enable these sick, subhuman sadists, knowing what they’ve done to us. And you don’t think they’ll do even worse behind your back? You’re a damned fool.”

Eyelids snapped wide open with a revelation finally lower at last, eerily relaxed as the younger student presents a proposal. “I know. Perhaps you could better appreciate the horror and dehumanization if you, too, experienced what otherwise must not bother you too much. Perhaps Her Highness and I are liars, and the unfathomable violation is just a myth. Enlighten me, would you?”

Lysithea’s words were, for lack of a better word, cutting; as icy and incising as any surgeon’s blade. He wants to plead, to explain, to pull himself open and show that there was no love held in his heart for the Agarthans, to utter ten thousand curses on their wretched names. So he lets his arms fall, allows them to hang loose and heavy and limp at his sides. His mana recedes, his resistances drop, his vision swims with tears as he watches deep indigo magic swirl into eldritch, unnatural shapes. And yet, Hubert’s jaw is still set and clenched, unable to be moved. He is a failure, and failures deserve punishment.

Lysithea’s eyes sting, unable to hold back scalding hot tears, but there is no sobbing to be heard. Closer to a dog’s snarl or a cobra’s hiss are the sounds that leave her lips.

“Do you think you’ll appreciate the sight of your own viscera, Hubert? How about the sight of your blood mixed like paint!?”

Lysithea channels all that she has. Dark Spikes Tau, Luna Lambda, Hades Omega, Swarm Zeta, Miasma Delta: all fire in rapid succession, a reckless tactic she’d never resorted to before. And for good reason — the instant she does this, the recoil is blistering, leaving the gremory literally feeling the rapid transition from nerve damaged digits to nothing at all, a dark mage’s last warning before the onset of scarred, orchid fingertips.

Crackling, renegade sparks of electric pink wildfire, toxic black fog, and ultraviolet needles spring from Lysithea’s hands to Hubert’s general direction, melding into an unorthodox amalgamation of blinding mana.

The first wave crashes against his mana, that autonomic response of a living being under attack; the same way one reflexively shuts their eyes against the glare of the sun. And then it continues, a sea of dark mana enveloping him, crushing him. He’d felt it before, of course, the way it writhed in your veins and pulled you apart, but not like this. Never like this. Hubert may have screamed at some point in that biocidal haze, but there’s no way of knowing over the ringing in his ears.

When his eyes finally flutter open again he is, in fact, treated to the sight of his own viscera. There’s a mild surprise they open at all, the years he spent steeping his own body in foul magic likely the only reason he could tolerate it. His breathing is quick and shallow, and he feels it rattle around in his chest, a loose piece in a wretched machine.

“I saw… I saw what they did to Lady Edelgard…” Hubert is slumped against a tree, his head too heavy to lift from his chest, but he knew Lysithea would hear him, even with his voice a hollow, grating whisper. He’d felt that adrenaline enough to know how acutely it sharpened one's senses, how it made blood shimmer in the moonlight. “They are worse than beasts.”

He feels something rasping in his throat, forces himself to cough with a tremendous effort and an equal measure of pain. He spits out what is dredged up, a mass of already-congealing blood still thrumming with shadowy energy. “They have eyes… in Enbarr. They have a blade… at her back.”

“Walk with her… see Shambhala burn.” It was treason, to say what he was saying. They are secrets he was to take to the grave, even this one, a lover’s tryst gone as wrong as it could. But if this was his end, was he not able to appoint an heir, someone else who would stand by Edelgard in his absence? Surely she couldn’t begrudge him that. “And tell her I am sorry.” Hubert’s eyes flutter shut again, too heavy to be held open, and he feels his body numb.

Lysithea doesn’t know how long the spells rushed from her now blackened hands. Only that there is a mangled, body-shaped mass where Hubert used to be, and Lysithea can only drop to her knees and sob ugly, uncontrollable tears.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

This isn’t real.

This can’t be real.

But it is, and it’s a reality that Lysithea alone is responsible for. She can’t go back. She can’t rewind time.

Ripping the sleeve from her shirt, the dark mage desperately pats the ground for sticks to craft a tourniquet through blurry, glassy vision. Time is not their friend, nor will it ever be. She must move. Hurry.

Running, nearly stumbling more than once on her way, Lysithea joins Hubert’s side, unable to care that her knees scrape the gravel in her descent. Up close, he looked nothing short of horrible. Broken, haphazardly assembled, a bloodied husk of a human. How Hubert survived the impact at all is beyond her, but it is a blessing she will not waste.

“Shh... Shut up. Shut up. Please, stop telling me this. I’m not hearing it. Because you’re not saying it. Because you are going to survive, and you are going to carry on. And... and...”

The Professor had her master the Bishop class so long ago. The techniques are distant, but Lysithea channels them as best as she possibly can, increasing the effectiveness of the healing spells so urgently needed all over him. How desperately she wishes she’d spent more time shadowing at the infirmary, to be prepared for the worst as tears fall on her lover’s cheek.

Not that she could have been prepared for this. Who in their right mind could be?

“I’m so sorry.”

Lysithea opens Hubert’s shirt to the best of her ability without moving him too much, needing to address major internal damages first.

It would probably be easier to list off what isn’t horribly compromised, but that’s beside the point. The young warlock tries to ignore the blood smearing on her dark hands, tries to focus on making sure Hubert’s organs are exactly where they are supposed to be before she cauterizes the wound. No time for stitches. No time for a gentle touch.

Summoning forth precise, white-hot flames at her fingertips, Lysithea works quickly, cleanly, but far from painlessly. Never leaving her peripheral vision is the shallow rise and fall of his chest, needing more than anything for it to stay diligent. It’s time to make use of her fabric. Two major points of blood loss at his lower bicep and upper thigh, and Lysithea has no intention of performing any amputations.

Securing her makeshift tourniquets tightly, the arcane prodigy feels safe enough to focus on the magical aspect of recovery. The dark, hostile magic must be purged from him. This, too, would be painful. “Hubert, please... don’t leave. We need you. I— I need you. You can’t go like this. I won’t let you.”

The golden-green shimmer of benevolent dances over the mana-induced, indigo wounds. A curious contrast, like a fairy fluttering above smoldering coals of hellfire. Lysithea bites her lip in concentration, doing everything in her power to soothe the pain and reverse the consequences of the questionable choices leading up to the expanding magical burns vandalizing his body.

“Hubert, can you hear me?”

Speech isn’t necessary. To blink, to lift a finger, to hum, to do something that allows her to know that this mind was still intact is all that she begs for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ❤️ is always appreciated! Questions, comments, concerns? Leave them below 👇👇


End file.
